


Fresh Hell

by ThatOneGaySlytherin



Category: Love Victor (TV 2020)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - College/University, Blood and Gore, Dark Humor, Halloween, Largely Inspired by Scream Queens, M/M, Murder, Slasher AU, nb!felix, the author may or may not have a fixation with benji campbell's ass, this fic is pure self indulgence and im Not Sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:21:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27001900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatOneGaySlytherin/pseuds/ThatOneGaySlytherin
Summary: Two other bodies have been discovered, both in different areas of campus altogether.“Someone’s been busy,” Lake jokes.“Lake,” Victor and Mia both say.“Well? Three murders in one day is impressive, let’s just admit it.”~*~*~Venji college AU: Is Halloween more or less fun when you add real murder?
Relationships: Benjamin "Benji" Campbell/Victor Salazar, Mia Brooks/Lake Meriwether
Comments: 69
Kudos: 41
Collections: Venji Fic Fests: Halloween 2020





	1. Fresh Hell

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all I'm so excited to finally be posting this!! I've had the idea for a slasher au rolling around my head for a while, but it wasn't until I remember the masterpiece that is Scream Queens that I found some direction. I'm planning (hoping) for this to be really campy and full of dark humor and just relative spooky fun, and I hope y'all enjoy!!! <3
> 
> (Chapters titles all based on dialogue from the iconique Chanel Oberlin)

_Ding_.

“It’s obviously fake,” Benji yawns and swipes out of the notification.

Victor scoffs and looks up from his device. “How can you even say that?”

“They didn’t even give a name, Vic.”

“Probably for privacy. Or something.”

Benji rolls his eyes. “It’s just a Halloween prank. _Or something_.”

The whole student body of UGA has just received a text notification from public safety that a murder has occurred just off campus. A _murder_.

“Yeah, such a hilarious prank,” Victor says and stretches his legs. He’s been curled up against Benji for the last hour, doing his best to ignore the lab report that’s due for his gen ed bio course. “Do you think maybe somebody hacked them?”

With another yawn, Benji closes his notebook and pushes himself up against Victor’s chest. He shimmies his shoulder slightly, conjuring the image in Victor’s head of a puppy trying to get comfortable. “I don’t really care, honestly.”

Victor can’t help but chuckle into Benji’s shoulder as he presses his lips against the warm flesh of Benji’s neck. “But what if someone really _is_ dead?”

“Then they won’t have to take finals.”

“Ghosts can hold pencils.”

“Oh, shut up,” Benji says. He twists his head and pulls Victor into a kiss, deep and warm, the taste of shitty coffee on his tongue. “Do you wanna…” he asks as he pulls away, one of his canines catching on his bottom lip as he glances at Victor through thick lashes.

Victor groans and knocks his forehead against Benji’s. “This lab report is due tonight and I haven’t started it yet.”

“I’ll do it for you.”

Victor laughs. “No, you won’t.”

Benji grins. “No, I won’t. But consider the implications of some hands-on experience with the material. Don’t you think it might help your understanding of the data?”

“Did you just refer to your dick as the _material_?” Victor says with mock horror as he reaches for his lab workbook. “Besides, this isn’t even human bio. You already took this class, dumbass, remember?”

“My ass is _not_ dumb.” With a huff, Benji collapses back into his pile of pillows. “Why couldn’t you have finished it while I was working on prep for that stupid research paper?”

“I was distracted.”

“Twitter isn’t going anywhere, Vic,” he grumbles. “After?”

Victor leans over and plants a quick kiss on the exposed stripe of flesh where Benji’s t-shirt has ridden up. “I’ll think about it. Nothing gets me in the mood like macromolecules, after all.”

“Ooh! Uh,” Benji says and covers his eyes with his hands. He wiggles his toes as he thinks. “Carbohydrates, proteins, nucleic acids, and…?”

Victor exhales an amused breath through his nose. “Lipids.”

“Right. Lipids, otherwise known as fats,” Benji says, a note of triumph in his voice. “Fat, just like…” he says and turns over, throwing a glance at Victor over his shoulder.

“You set me up,” Victor says, making a valiant effort to focus on Benji’s smug simper and _not_ his ass (which happens to look adorable in his navy flannel pajama bottoms). “And it wasn’t even that clever.”

Benji shrugs, then wiggles his butt. “Maybe everything leads here eventually. You could do a lab report on—”

“ _So,_ I’m just gonna stop you right there,” Victor says with a laugh. He pushes off the bed, giving Benji’s backside a light tap as he pads away from the bed and settles down at Benji’s desk.

The room is dim, Benji’s LEDs currently set to a somber dark green and a candle burning in the corner.

(“How can something smell like moonlight?” Victor had asked when Benji bought it.)

The wall against which Benji’s desk sits is decorated with a few dozen polaroids of Victor and Benji together, as well a some scattered cameos from their friends. But the common theme is Victor and Benji, Benji and Victor, always arm in arm, hand in hand; in more pictures than one might expect, Benji is on Victor’s back, arms around his neck, Victor’s expression shot through with genuine shock and glee.

They’d met the third week of Victor’s freshman year when he attended his first Pride Alliance meeting. Well, he _nearly_ attended it, but then suffered a panic attack at the prospect of a room full of complete strangers perceiving him as something he’s tried to distance himself from for the last four years.

Benji had been running late to the meeting and stumbled on Victor, curled up in a ball and inhaling his own tears. Benji pulled Victor into a stairwell and helped him calm down, stop hyperventilating, and come back down from his personal storm cloud.

When Victor explained the situation, Benji seemed to understand _exactly_ where he was coming from, and…things just sort of took off from there.

Not having to do the whole coming out thing with Benji was really nice, and Victor figured that if Benji was still interested in being his friend after the melodrama of their first meeting, he must _really_ be interested. Benji was a sophomore and Victor was surprised that he didn’t feel intimidated; if anything, he felt some comfort in knowing he might have a guide in Benji. The next week, they’d met up before Pride Alliance and walked in together. Victor ended up having a good time and meeting the people who have become his closest friends.

This is also when he’d learned that his roommate, Fee—with whom Victor had been paired via random selection—was also in the community, and suddenly they had something very crucial in common and Victor’s room started feeling less like a concrete dungeon and more like a home.

Victor’s first date with Benji was an accident, technically. The day after that first Pride meeting, Victor had asked Benji if he wouldn’t mind meeting at a Starbucks and campus and just talking for a while. And they talked. Oh, they _talked_. They spilled their guts over cold brews and after four hours had gone by and Benji had accidentally missed a class, the day bled into an evening.

Victor’s intentions were just to deepen his friendship with Benji, but when Benji had walked Victor back to his dorm and pressed a quick kiss to Victor’s cheek, Victor spontaneously allowed something in himself to unlock, to be witnessed by somebody willing to see it, thorns and barbs and scars and all. And Benji cared about these blemishes, these marks, but he gave just as much attention to the gorgeous blooming bulb in the center of Victor’s ribcage.

They’ve been inseparable ever since. Victor’s never been in a real relationship, and he had no idea it could feel this good. Benji is kind, and thoughtful, and though he loves to distract Victor (and good lord does he know how), he’s actually the best thing that’s happened to Victor’s academic life. Though Victor’s still undecided on his major, Benji’s guided him through finishing all of his gen ed courses, and by the end of sophomore year Victor’s schedule will be open for nothing but classes that actually interest him.

Plus, when he isn’t wiggling his ass in Victor’s direction, Benji holds Victor accountable, and they push each other; Victor sometimes has to remind Benji not to take things quite so seriously, and Benji inspires Victor to be better, to do better.

But of course, there are moments like this one, when Benji comes up behind Victor and drapes his arms around Victor’s shoulders. His shirt has come off sometime between the short trek between bed and desk. “Are you finished yet?”

“Benji,” Victor warns, but he can’t help but smile when Benji rests his chin on the crown of his head. “Due _tonight_ ,” he reminds his boyfriend.

“What time?”

“Eleven fifty-nine.”

Benji hums and looks at his phone. “Okay, that’s in three hours.”

“Two and a half,” Victor says as he flips his book open and clicks his pen a few times.

“Your rounding is weird.”

“My rounding is _accurate_ ,” Victor corrects.

“Fine, how long does this usually take you?”

Victor sighs and turns around in his seat. “Are you seriously _that_ horny right now? We just got a campus-wide notification that someone is _dead_.”

“There’s no way it’s real,” Benji whines. “Or maybe it’s not even a UGA student. Don’t you think they would…I don’t know, evacuate us or something?”

“Can you _evacuate_ my personal space so I can finish this?” he asks, trying to keep the slight edge of his voice at bay.

Benji pouts but removes his arms. Victor’s body immediately wishes he hadn’t, but he reminds himself to let his brain take control, at least until this fucking lab report is submitted. “Fine.”

“And then I’ll study your anatomy as much as you want.”

Benji’s jaw drops into an open-mouthed smile. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Should I go shower?”

Victor squeezes his eyes shut, grinning. “Sure. I don’t have class until eleven tomorrow, anyway.”

“And will you...” Benji says and presses the tips of his pointer fingers together, turning his knees inward and hanging his head.

“Will I what?”

Though his face is hard to see at this angle in the low lighting, Victor can tell Benji is enjoying how much he’s been able to draw this out. “Let’s just say…rump is on the menu, if you’re hungry.”

Victor cackles and throws his pen, which bounces off Benji’s naked chest. “I thought I told you to _never_ use that word in a sexual context,” he says, equal parts horrified and amused. ‘Rump’ is essentially the only word his mother has ever used to refer to anybody’s backside, and he’d much rather that connotation _not_ get wrapped up in sex with Benji.

“Was that a yes?”

“Can I please finish this fucking lab report?” Victor says, still laughing.

“It’s twenty twenty-three, Vic. Everybody eats ass. Honestly, it would be pushing back the gay agenda _decades_ if you—”

“If I say yes, can I focus on macromolecules?”

Benji runs up to the chair and kisses Victor on the lips. “Good luck focusing,” he says, then runs to his closet, grabs, a towel, and bolts down the hallway to the bathroom.

Victor sighs, not pleased about how arousing this whole situation has been. He retrieves his pen, but before he can even transition into the right headspace for his lab report, his phone starts buzzing on the desk beside him. FaceTime from Fee.

He clears his throat and hopes the green lighting is covering up any rosiness in his cheeks as he answers.

Fee’s concerned face pops up on Victor’s screen, their eyes wide and their comforter pulled up to their chin.

“Um. Hey, bud,” Victor says and brings his phone closer to his face. “Everything okay?”

Fee shakes their head. “No. I mean, yes. I mean. Did you get the notification?”

“Oh,” Victor says with a sigh. “Yeah. Benji thinks it’s some prank or something though.”

“Who in their right fucking mind would think this is a funny prank?” they ask, voice quivering slightly.

Victor shrugs. “That’s what I thought. Anxiety acting up?”

Now that they’re living together for a second year—though Victor spends more nights at Benji’s than in his dorm room with Fee—they’ve learned the ins and outs of each other’s psyches in a rather intimate way.

“Little bit. I did those breathing exercises you found online but it wasn’t working, and I figured maybe if I talked to you it would distract me. You’re busy,” they say as Victor places his phone down against the wall so he can start working.

“Oh, yeah, but it’s okay. I can probably talk and work at the same time.”

“Are you sure?”

“Fee,” Victor says and looks directly into the camera. “I’ve got you. Tell me about your day.”

Fee grins and exhales as Victor starts to work through his notes and organize them. His instructor for lab is incredibly chill, but that doesn’t mean he can’t actually try. Fee launches into an explanation of the game they’re currently working on, a single player board game inspired by space and the K-pop girl group LOOΠΔ, which Victor has been exposed to because of both Fee and Benji. Honestly, the game, while insanely complicated, sounds like a lot of fun. Fee’s working on it for one of the classes they’re taking, but Victor gets the feeling that it’s an idea that would’ve come to fruition regardless.

About twenty minutes in, the door opens and Benji enters, clad only in a towel.

“Ah!” Victor squeaks and covers the camera. “I’m on FaceTime with Fee,” he hisses.

Benji chuckles. “Fee has seen me naked before.”

“They have?” Victor’s hand remains clamped over the lens.

“I have,” Fee says. “It was an accident, but it wasn’t weird or anything.”

Victor shakes his head. “Okay, someday I _will_ need context, but for now, Benji, put some clothes on.”

“I’m totally cockblocking, aren’t I?” Fee asks, though they don’t sound sorry. In fact, they sound a bit smug.

Victor uncovers the camera and flips them off. “No, you’re not. I told Benjamin that I had to finish this lab report before any hanky-panky.”

“Oh, so _you_ can say hanky-panky, but _I_ can’t say—”

“It’s different,” Victor says, holding a single finger over his shoulder but not looking back at Benji. “It’s different,” he repeats.

“If you say so,” Benji says with a giggle.

Victor’s phone buzzes again; Mia is _also_ FaceTiming him. “Fucking hell, since when did everybody want to video chat?”

“Just accept that you’re hot, babe,” Benji says from behind him. This, followed by a familiar _fwhump_ which typically indicates that Benji has thrown himself dramatically onto his bed. “The world opens up when you realize you’re hot,” he says, the words muffled because he’s face-first in a pillow.

Victor just shakes his head and chuckles as he hits answer and Mia’s face pops up beside Fee.

“Hey, Mia,” they say.

“Hi, love! Sorry Vic, I didn’t realize you were in the middle of something.”

“I _wish_ he were in the middle of—”

“ _Benjamin_!”

“Shutting up,” Benji grumbles, still muffled.

Victor tries to conceal his laughter as he turns his attention back to his phone. “Ignore him. Fee, you don’t mind, right?”

“Not at all. I was planning on calling Mia next anyway.”

“How’s the game going?” comes another voice. Victor glances up from his lab book to see that Lake has joined Mia, planting herself firmly in her girlfriend’s lap.

Fee grins. “I am _so_ glad you asked,” they say and dive headfirst into a re-explanation. Victor is grateful for the company, and he’s able to more or less tune out and let Fee ramble while he works on bio. By the time “Lunar Frequency” has been explained to Mia and Lake, Victor is ready to enter all of his data into the online assignment.

In the background, Benji is humming gently and picking at his guitar, and in front of him, Fee, Mia, and Lake are exchanging bullshit theories about the murder. Despite the macabre subject matter, Victor can’t help but sit back and take a moment to appreciate the perfection of the moment. In his boyfriend’s bedroom, FaceTiming with his three best friends, an entire future sprawling before him.

“What do _you_ think, Vic?” Lake asks as Victor moves onto his final question.

He hums as he plugs in what he hopes is the correct number and hits submit without even reviewing any of his answers. “It makes me nervous as fuck. Do y’all remember all those years ago when people were walking around dressed like clowns?”

Fee gasps; Mia and Lake both laugh.

“Wasn’t that just to drum up publicity for a movie?”

Victor frowns. “That was never confirmed, I think. Anyway, I worry it could be something like that again. Except maybe it went too far this time.”

“Okay, but what are the odds that it’ll happen again?” Lake challenges.

Victor’s phone dings, as does Benji’s behind him.

Another notification from public safety.

“Holy fuck,” Fee breathes as they read it. “Are you all seeing this?”

“Yeah, I see it,” Mia murmurs. “Maybe this is more serious than they’re letting on.”

Victor turns; Benji is leaning against the wall, headphones in and eyes closed, his fingers dancing up and down his guitar strings. “Benji,” Victor says, but he doesn’t hear. “ _Benji_.”

Benji startles and rips out his headphones. “Jesus, Vic! What?”

“Look at your phone.”

He frowns, then leans across his bed and picks up the device. As Benji reads the notification, his eyes widen in the cool glow of his screen. “No way,” he whispers.

Two other bodies have been discovered, both in different areas of campus altogether.

“Someone’s been busy,” Lake jokes.

“ _Lake_ ,” Victor and Mia both say.

“Well? Three murders in one day is impressive, let’s just admit it.”

Mia scoffs and pushes Lake’s shoulder with a horrified laugh. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m in danger around you.”

“Oh, you are,” Lake says cheerfully.

Benji comes up beside Victor, pulling over his comfy chair from the corner. His bottom lip is up over the top one, brows furrowed, the face he makes when he’s concerned about something. “This is pretty bad.”

“Yeah,” Victor agrees. “Still think it’s a prank?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. It just seems weird to me that we’re being given all of this information, but nobody’s telling us to, like…go home or anything.”

Victor heaves a sigh and shoves his lab book away. “I mean, they probably know that it’s useless. People are gonna stick around for Halloween on Tuesday no matter what.”

“Right, very wise choices,” Mia muses. “Murderer on the loose? Let’s pack ourselves into a basement and hope for the best!”

“Strength in numbers,” Fee offers.

“Or people are just herding themselves right into the wolf’s cave,” Benjis mutters, still looking at his phone. “Hold on. That’s a good lyric!” he says, his tone ricocheting into excitement as he wrenches open his Notes app and plunks the idea into his ever-growing list of ideas.

Lake gasps, which causes both Victor and Benji to almost fall off their respective perches. “Idea. Theta house is probably going to be absolutely abandoned on Halloween. The girls will either be out at parties or too afraid to stick around.”

“You really think some people will go home?” Mia asks.

Even on the tiny screen Victor recognizes the withering look from Lake. “Please, my love. You know Casey and Ron threaten to burn the place down when they see a roach. And Dylan hasn’t watched a horror movie since he was fourteen because he still thinks he’s going to be possessed by screen demons or something. They’re not gonna stick around to find out if these murders are the real deal. Plus, I already know Marissa will be home because her stupid grandma died or something—”

“ _Lake_!” all four of them say in tandem.

“God, sorry, I’m sure her grandma wasn’t stupid, but dying around Halloween is just not cute.”

Despite himself, Victor snorts and shakes his head. “So you’re suggesting a Halloween hangout at Theta house?” The ‘Theta house’ is a mansion off-campus, much like some of the houses where official Greek organizations house their members. Theta Alpha Phi isn’t an actual social frat; it’s the theater honors society. But because Renee Hofstedter’s family is insanely rich, they’re able to house some of the members, and they certainly _treat_ it like an official Greek organization. Lake lives there in one of the only single rooms (“girlfriend privilege,” she’d explained) and regularly invites Victor and the gang over to watch movies on the theater sized plasma screen.

“We’ll still have strength in numbers,” Lake says, “and if these alleged murders _are_ real, the murderer will probably go for a big party and really rack up the body count.”

Benji sighs and Mia places a hands over her eyes.

“You think the murderer’s tryna fuck?” Fee asks, which breaks all remaining tension as they all laugh together.

Still, Victor has this uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“I could be down,” Benji says once he’s caught his breath. He gives Victor a little look, to which Victor responds with a nod, trying not to look too resigned. “Yeah, we’ll be there.”

“Yay!” Lake says, taking the phone out of Mia’s hands. “We can do costumes and snacks and we’ll watch scary movies and laugh at the people who are dying because we’re not them.”

“ _Lake Meriwether_!” Mia says, horrified.

Benji chuckles. “So, you really think it’s fake, huh?”

Lake huffs. “I know a stunt when I smell one, Benjamin. This is all leading up to something.”

“Can it even be legal?” Victor asks. “To lie about something like this?”

A silence springs up between them, only interrupted by the gentle crackle of Benji’s candle and the sound of his breath.

“Well, it’s been real,” Benji says. He stands and returns the chair to its place.

Mia gives Victor a suspicious look through the screen. “Right, we’re interrupting something, aren’t we?”

“No, you’re not,” Victor insists, but from his bed where he’s flopped once again, Benji calls out, “I’m just a hole, sir!”

Victor’s face catches fire; he buries it in his hands to douse the heat. “I’m just gonna. Um.”

“Good night, boys!” Lake says, sounding amused. “Be safe.”

“I’m. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Love y’all. Goodnight,” Victor says and hangs up. He turns all the way around to find Benji leaning against the headboard, hands behind his head and a devious smile on his face. “I hate you,” he says.

“You love me.”

“They’re not mutually exclusive.”

Benji cocks his head. “Fair enough. Come here,” he says and reaches his arms out, making grabby hands by flexing his fingers. “I’ve been so patient.”

“You have _not_ ,” Victor says. “But because you’re so cute, I’m willing to overlook that.” He crosses the room and crawls over the bed, right into Benji’s arms.

Benji kisses Victor on the forehead and pulls him into his chest with a little content grunt. “You’re not really worried about this stupid public safety shit, are you?”

Victor pulls his lips to the side. “I don’t know. It just seems really off to me.”

“Try not to worry about it. It’ll ruin Halloween,” Benji says and pinches Victor’s side, right at the bottom of his ribcage.

Victor yelps and squirms, then adjusts so he can look at Benji better. He brings a hand to Benji’s face and squeezes his cheeks inward so that his lips puff out. “Would you protect me if the murderer came after us?”

Benji nods, brows raised in a serious fashion which completely betrays the ridiculous sight of his fish lips. “I’d kill them first,” he says, the words distorted by Victor’s hand around his mouth. “And then whisk you away to safety.”

“Good. That was a good answer. But do you think you could whisk me without the killing? I don’t want you to have the emotional burden of murder on your head.”

Benji breaks free from Victor’s grip and raises both of his hands in claws, wiggling his fingers menacingly. “But what if I _am_ the murderer?” he asks, then breaks into the worst impression of a classic villain laugh Victor has heard.

“Then I’d be really sad. But also I’d feel better.”

“Why?”

“Well, you wouldn’t kill _me_ , would you?” Victor asks, giving Benji his biggest eyes possible.

Benji’s smile shifts from amusement to something more genuine. “No. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. I would miss you too much.”

The ghost of a laugh suddenly feels out of place on Victor’s lips. He clears his throat and runs a stray finger down Benji’s sternum. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Victor. I don’t know what’s going on, but we’re gonna be fine. I promise. I’ll always protect you.”

Victor smiles again, a soft grin that he couldn’t prevent if he tried. “And what if _you’re_ the one who needs protecting?”

“Not possible,” Benji says and presses a quick kiss to Victor’s lips. “Statistically, murderers always go for the most attractive person in the room.”

“You’re such a fucking dork,” Victor says and gives Benji’s chest a little shove. “So, do you wanna…”

Benji quirks his lips to the side in thought, then shakes his head. “Nah, I actually changed my mind. I just wanna cuddle.”

“After all of that? You’re sure?”

He nods. “Yeah. Plus, I always feel safest when you’re big spoon. I could use that right now.”

Victor tries not to read into this too much, but the fact that Benji is lying about how scared he is definitely gets filed away in Victor’s mind. But for now, he rearranges his limbs so Benji can settle into them like a basket; he inhales the sharp scent of Benji’s shampoo, his hair still damp, everything about him clean, pure, so pure.

As a rule, Victor doesn’t like to fall asleep without brushing his teeth. But Benji is asleep in minutes, and the last thing Victor wants to do is do wrong by Benji. So he settles in, Benji tucked against him, and starts to wonder which couple’s costume Benji is going to force him into. Victor will drag his feet, but that’s just part of the routine. When it comes down to it, he’ll do anything Benji could possibly ask of him.

His last stray, intrusive thought as the sound of Benji’s light snoring lulls him into slumber is this: Benji might be the only person in the world Victor would kill for.

Benji’s lights pulse, then shift to a deep purple as Victor closes his eyes and drifts off.


	2. Backstabbing Little Bitch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'ALL, I am simply having so much fun writing this fic. This chapter ended up being a bit longer than I was hoping for, but that just means more content so I'm gonna consider it a win :D

Victor stands in front of the mirror, running his palms up and down his sides and wishing he didn’t feel so stupid about the way he looked. In general, he’s really come a long way in terms of self-confidence, partially because of Benji and how supportive and encouraging he is of Victor in all of his fashion experiments.

But this…is just _not it_.

The thin black stripe of black fabric over his eyes obscures his vision, but not enough to save him from his own reflection. He sighs; Benji had gone to great lengths to put this outfit together, and it makes more sense when the two of them stand beside each other, at least.

He adjusts the sleeves of his shirt, bright red, long-sleeved, contoured to his body and tucked into blue gloves at the end. Victor can’t decide which he hates more: the tiny white hat perched on his head, the ascot tied around his neck, or the pair of black booty shorts that are already riding up in all the wrong places. Benji had suggested Victor wear a jockstrap to mitigate some of the ridage, but the prospect of hanging out with their friends while wearing a jock made Victor blush (though apparently it’s not going to stop Benji).

Benji comes into the room, whistling as he slicks his hair back. Despite how stupid his costume is, he still manages to look _hot_. A bright orange crop top covered by a purple harness with two shells glued over his pecs, a belt with an ‘M’ cinched tight around his waist and the most awful pink fuzzy slippers on his feet. And the best part of all: Benji himself is wearing a very similar pair of black booty shorts, which are much more flattering on his body than Victor’s.

Benji grins at him and places his hands on his hips. “You look great.”

“I feel stupid.”

“It _is_ stupid. But it’s also hot.”

Victor ducks his head, grinning. “No, _you_ look hot. I look like I started to get into drag and chickened out halfway through.”

Benji chuckles through his nose as he pulls out a container of purple makeup and starts painting over his nose and cheeks.

“You never answered my question,” Victor says as he does a half-turn in the mirror, frowning at the way his shorts are cutting into his hip bones.

“What question?”

As Victor turns to Benji, his hands slump to his sides. “Why Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy?”

“Because I already had the crop top,” Benji says, his voice low in concentration. He’s bent over his desk, face buried in a hand mirror as he continues to paint on Mermaid Man’s star. “ _And_ the slippers.”

“You just wanted an excuse to wear a harness.”

Benji hums, his lips twitching into a smile. “I considered wearing _just_ the harness, but I figured I can save that look for another time.”

Victor clears his throat. “Oh. That’s. Oh.”

“What?” Benji asks and straightens, paint brush stopped mid-stroke against his cheekbone. “Should I ditch the shirt?”

Giving him a quick glance up and down and trying not to linger too long on the large exposed strip of Benji’s abdomen, Victor shakes his head. “No. We’re just hanging out with the gang, there’s nobody to impress.”

“Except for you,” Benji points out.

Victor cocks his head to the side and quirks an eyebrow. “Do you honestly still think you have to impress me at this point? Or, better yet, that you don’t blow me away pretty much no matter what you do?”

Benji’s tongue pokes out the corner of his mouth as he grabs a makeup palette and starts applying a purple eyeshadow to the star to set it. “Of course not,” he says and snaps the palette shut, “but that doesn’t mean I _can’t_ anymore. I like to keep things interesting, if you hadn’t noticed.”

He allows himself a brief look at Benji’s ass as he leans over the desk to grab an eyeliner. “No, I’ve definitely noticed,” Victor says around a smile.

Benji looks over his shoulder, follows Victor’s gaze, and gives him the _eyes_. His infamous eyes. Benji has this way of making his lashes grow half an inch and oozing pure sex from his corneas, a terrifying ability that Victor is only just learning to resist. It’s gotten them into a good amount of bars and clubs, though, so when it’s not being used against him, Victor is glad for it (if a bit jealous).

“We have to be at Theta in twenty minutes,” Victor reminds Benji, who’s now leaned over again, carefully applying a thin layer of black around his eyes.

Benji trills his lips. “Just because Mia said eight doesn’t mean we have to be there at eight. It’s just us, like you said.”

“Actually, I just remembered some of Lake’s Theta friends ended up sticking around.”

Benji groans, still applying the makeup. “Which ones?”

“You know which ones.”

Another groan, louder this time. “Not the grand high bitch herself…”

“Renee isn’t _that_ bad,” Victor lies.

Benji sets down the eyeliner and turns to Victor, one eye twitching. “She regularly tries to flirt with me.”

“And? Why does it matter? You’re gay.”

Benji gasps and crosses his arms over his chest. “What the fuck? I’m _gay_?”

“Shut up,” Victor says. He crosses the room and grabs Benji by the harness, pulls him in for a kiss. “Are you still unsure?”

Benji licks his lips, eyes a bit wide. “That was different. You’re not usually so…forward.”

“It’s the crop top,” Victor decides. “I can’t focus on anything else.”

Benji grins up at him, a sly smile that sends a creeping chill down Victor’s back. “Maybe I’ll make them a regular part of my wardrobe.”

“It’s a little late for that, isn’t it? It’s cold out now.”

“A wise woman once said ‘a hoe never gets cold,’ my love.”

Victor crosses his arms. “And you’re a hoe?”

“I’m a hoe for _you_ ,” Benji says, then kisses Victor on the cheek. “All right, we should get going while there’s still a little bit of daylight.”

Victor’s heart seizes once; he swallows down the sensation. There’s been a concerning lack of news regarding the murders in the past two days, which, paradoxically, has made it rather difficult for Victor to focus on anything else. Their walk to Theta is only fifteen minutes, but the prospect of some psychopath running around with a machete makes his toes curl in his stupid blue rubber boots.

“It’ll be _fine_ , Vic,” Benji says, picking up on the trepidation. It’s one of the best and worst things about Benji. He’s so damn perceptive; it’s basically impossible to hide anything from him. “I swear, you’re the only person on campus who’s even given it a thought since the announcements.”

This is likely true. In fact, Victor has ranted about it at _length_ to both Fee and Mia while sitting on campus, and of course Benji’s heard all about Victor’s qualms and talked him down off the ledge half a dozen times in the past forty-eight hours.

“The scariest part of this night is going to be Renee and her friends,” Benji assures Victor. He sidles up into Victor’s personal space, the dark around his eyes and the star between them making Victor’s stomach flip. “Is it the whole group of them?”

“Not sure,” Victor says, his mouth dry. “Can you step away?”

Benji moves in closer. “What is it, Barnacle Boy? You’re not up for a ride in the invisible boat mobile?”

“Benji.”

“ _Mermaid Man_ ,” he corrects, his voice just above a whisper. “We can’t let anybody know our true identities.”

Victor swallows, the dull ache of anxiety replaced by something erotic. “I am _not_ roleplaying this with you.”

“Of course, not until we get back later,” Benji says. He looks down, places a hand on Victor’s chest, then looks up again. “Right?”

“You are the most despicable human I’ve ever met.”

Benji smiles. “I’m aware,” he says, taps Victor’s chest, then turns away. “Okay, let’s go!” he calls out cheerfully, as if nothing had ever happened.

Victor takes a moment to compose himself, takes one last look in the mirror to ensure that nothing is visible due to the tightness of his shorts, and follows Benji out of his room.

* * *

The night is cool, brisk autumnal wind ruffling Victor’s hair as he links hands with Benji and they take off down the sidewalk. The streets are relatively empty at this point; it’s a bit early yet for most parties, so they have a relatively peaceful walk to Theta.

Still, Victor is on edge, his palm sweating against Benji’s. They don’t speak much as they stroll and elect instead to enjoy the calm of the evening. Every so often Benji will squeeze Victor’s hand and glance sideways just to make sure he’s okay.

It’s something of a miracle and something of a concern that they don’t see anybody during the entire walk. On the one hand, Victor knows that his mind would jump to a worst case scenario if they saw even _one_ other person out on the streets, but another part of him wonders why the world is so deserted. Does everybody else know something they don’t?

His breathing starts to hinder slightly as they turn their final corner; Benji releases his grip and slips an arm around Victor’s waist, pulling him close as they walk the final two blocks.

Theta house looms in front of them, an enormous gated manor that calls to mind old money. As Benji punches in the gate code, Victor turns his head back and forth, still on edge due to their isolation, the way their walk was so quiet and uneventful. There aren’t a lot of issues off-campus these days, but something about the news—fake or not—has Victor inventing the most gruesome scenarios in his head.

The gate swings open and Victor exhales. A cold gust swirls leaves in the yard as the gate closes behind them and Benji gives his side a light squeeze.

“Hey, you’re not really worried about it are you?” he asks.

Victor stops walking and turns his face away, suddenly embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Benji. I know it’s dumb—”

“Hey, no. It’s not dumb. I didn’t realize just how seriously you were taking this. I hope I didn’t do anything to invalidate that feeling.” Something about the words feels stilted, forced.

Victor shakes his head. “No, don’t worry about it.”

“Well, if you’re worried, then I’m worried, too. I never meant to make you feel dumb for being nervous, you know that, right?” Benji says and brings a hand to Victor’s cheek, still warm despite the chill. “I was just trying to reframe in a way that would help you think through it.”

“I know,” Victor says and rests his own hand on top of Benji’s. He forces a few breaths, expanding his diaphragm and trying to ground himself to Benji’s touch. Benji strokes Victor’s cheek as he breathes and, after a few seconds, he nods. “I’m fine. I’m good.”

“You sure? We could just go back to my place and—”

“No,” Victor says, then pulls Benji’s hand from his face and grips it in his own. “No, you’re looking forward to this. I mean, I am, too!” he assures his boyfriend. “Plus, the idea of walking back in the dark right now just makes me even more anxious.”

Benji gives him a tight-lipped smile and nods as they continue down the walkway toward the house. “That makes sense. I’m sure once we’re with everybody you’ll forget all about it.”

“I hope so. If Mia didn’t buy Snickers I’m jumping off the roof, though.”

Benji laughs and swings their arms forward, then back. “So dramatic. If there aren’t any Snickers, I’ll GoPuff some for you. Deal?”

“You know exactly how to win my heart,” Victor says with a longing glance in Benji’s direction. Benji is distracted, looking up at the moon, turquoise light shimmering, bouncing off his cheekbones, black-rimmed eyes shining in the lunar beams.

“Yeah, I guess I do.”

* * *

Mia answers the door and Victor immediately recognizes the costume: orange turtleneck sweater, red skirt, and thigh high boots. A pair of glasses with no lenses sit precariously on the bridge of her nose.

“You made it!” she says and hugs them both. “These costumes…y’all,” she laughs as she steps back. “I didn’t think it was possible to make Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy _sexy_ , but somehow you pulled it off.”

Victor gives her a sheepish smile as she shuts the door. “It was all Benji. He got the pieces together.”

“Right. All Victor had to do was look hot,” Benji says and squeezes Victor’s ass as he enters, passes the stairs, and makes his way into the main sitting room. A fire blazes underneath the television, a 152-inch plasma screen that Renee’s father bought as soon as the Theta chapter moved into the house (which, apparently, had been sitting here unused and collecting dust until Renee begged daddy to renovate and let her move in with her friends. Victor now wonders why he’d defended her earlier.)

Mia guides them to one of the couches and gestures to the spread in front of them.

Victor and Benji both laugh at the sight; Mia hangs her head with a smile. “Yeah, Lake went a little bit crazy. Hope you’re hungry.”

The options are varied: cupcakes with little gravestones on them, homespun cotton candy decorated with plastic spiders, cookies that look like fingers—Victor leans in just to make sure they aren’t _actually fingers,_ because wow, Lake nailed it—and several bowls of different flavors of popcorn and a certified militia of candy bars.

Benji pops a couple of gummy bears into his mouth, closes his eyes, and smiles. “Mmm.” Victor pats him on the back as he leans down and roots through an assortment of chocolate, celebrating when he finds a king-sized Snickers bar. Typically, they try to keep their diets fairly clean and they’re good at keeping one another in check, but they’ve both agreed to say fuck healthy eating, just for tonight.

As Victor peels back the wrapper, Fee stumbles into the room. Their face is painted a shade of green with strange brown markings; a sheer white top hangs loosely off their shoulders, vaguely tucked into a green skirt, and they’re wearing a pair of heels that have been decorated to look like hooves. And, most importantly, a rather convincing set of large, curved horns poke out of their hair, which has been teased into a bushy mess.

“Hey, Fee!” Benji says as they clop over to the table.

Fee shoots Benji double fingers guns, almost trips, then regains their balance and spreads their arms wide. “I’ve never felt more like myself,” they say, enraptured, silhouetted by the fire.

Victor frowns as he chews a large bite of Snickers. “As a sheep?”

Fee drops their arms and glowers at Victor. “I’m…I’m a _satyr_ ,” they say, exasperated.

“Don’t worry Fee, I got it,” Benji says and gives one of their horns a little pat. “Why are these such good quality?”

Fee sighs and slumps onto the couch, then mumbles something that Victor can’t quite hear. “What?” he asks.

“ _I used to be really into Homestuck cosplay,_ ” Fee says, placing an open palm to their forehead and turning away. “I just repainted some Aradia horns to look more natural.”

“Um. Cool,” Victor says. “I don’t know what half of those words mean.”

“Homestuck, Fee?” Mia asks, clearly trying to tamp down her amusement. “Wasn’t it pretty much done by the time you were old enough to—”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Fee says and reaches for a cookie. “I was a late bloomer when it came to Homestuck, okay?”

Mia gives Victor a funny look, then turns on the spot and shouts over her shoulder, “Lake? Vic and Benji just got here!”

A pause. Then, from somewhere upstairs comes Lake’s voice. “Do they look hot?”

“Yeah,” Mia calls back without hesitation.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Lake screeches.

Mia laughs and turns back to them. “She’s been debating all day whether she should go classic or sexy. She wasn’t sure what kind of gathering this would be.”

“But didn’t she know Renee and co. would be here?” Victor asks as he rips off another hunk of chocolate. “They’ll definitely do something sexy.”

“Yeah, Lake doesn’t really care about what Renee’s doing, though,” Mia says with a sigh.

A comfortable silence befalls them. The fire crackles on, and for the first time Victor notices spooky music playing from somewhere in the house, most likely Lake’s room.

Victor and Benji claim one of the couches and plop down. As Mia goes to check in with Lake and Fee pulls their phone almost directly to their nose to look at something, Benji turns to Victor and runs a hand over his hair.

“Hey,” he says.

Victor smiles. “Hey.”

“You feel any better?”

He nods. “I’ve got a Snickers bar in me, I think I can handle whatever the night throws at us.”

Good thing, too, because there’s a sudden racket of excited voices and some serious clomping as Renee and her friends make their way to the first floor from above. Benji sighs, already anticipating the onslaught.

Renee arrives in the sitting room first. Tall, lithe, with eyes that are slightly sunken in, but in a way that’s more sexy and mysterious than malnourished. Much of her facial space has been taken over by pastel pink eyeshadow, buffed out from her eyelids and down into her peachy blush. _We get it, you watch Euphoria_ , Victor thinks. Her dark hair hangs straight down her back, contrasting against the pure white of her skimpy, sequined dress and elaborate angel wings.

“Hey, y’all!” she cries and poses, one hand on her hip and another framing her face.

“Hi, Renee,” Victor and Benji say in tandem.

Behind her are just two of her usual posse, one a sophomore and the other a freshman. The sophomore is Courtney Jung, dressed like sexy Kermit the Frog, and Victor thinks the freshman’s name might be Millie—she’s in a rather spot-on pirate getup, but it seems she may have missed the sexy memo.

“Y’all know Courtney and Mills, yeah?” Renee trills as she strides across the room, the firelight glittering in the highlight dusted across her high cheekbones. When nobody responds, she says, “You’re here literally all the time so if you don’t, consider getting a CT scan to deal with the brain tumor that’s cockblocking your memory or whatever.”

Benji snorts and Victor places a hand on his knee, just to make sure there’s not going to be a sassy retort.

Renee’s eyes rake the three of them and land on Benji. “ _Oooh_ ,” she squeals, “looking extra snatched tonight, Benjamin!”

“Thanks, Renee,” Benji says as he plasters on the fakest smile possible.

If Renee notices, she doesn’t care.

“No Holton tonight?” Fee asks politely, though their voice is tense. Holton, Renee’s on-again off-again boyfriend.

Renee sighs. “I told him we wouldn’t be doing coke so he decided to go to that disgusting Sig Ep party.” She walks up to the table, pops a single piece of popcorn into her mouth, then sighs, content.

Just in time, Mia and Lake descend the stairs and come up behind Millie and Courtney. Lake is wearing a purple bodycon dress with a lavender belt wrapped tight around her waist, a lime green scarf hugging her neck and her feet in purple velvet booties.

“Welcome, everyone,” she says and claps her hands together, slightly breathless.

Victor covers his mouth so she doesn’t see him smiling. Her lipstick is already a bit smeared, which explains why her and Mia were gone for as long as they were.

“There are drinks in the kitchen, booze and otherwise,” she says with a subtle glance at Benji, “and you’ve already started on the snacks. Great.”

Fee raises their hand. Lake blinks a few times, then reluctantly points to them. “Yes, Fee?” she asks like she’s addressing a child.

“What movie are we watching?” they asks, either ignorant to or not bothered by Lake’s snarkiness.

“There are a few options. Halloween is one, that’s a classic. I was also thinking I Know What You Did Last Summer could be fun.”

Victor clears his throat. “What about Hocus Pocus?”

Renee gives him a wilting glare. “Vic, sweetie, I love you, but that’s the gayest thing you’ve ever said.”

“And?”

“Tonight I don’t want to be gay, I want to be _scared_ ,” Renee says and rolls her eyes.

“But, you’re not—” Victor starts, but Benji cuts him off and shifts forward on the couch. “What about Rocky Horror?” Benji suggests.

Renee freezes, her hand halfway to her mouth with another piece of popcorn; she looks to Benji, somehow magnifying the acid in her eyes. “The only thing you could suggest that would be gayer is literally homosexual _porn_ , Benjamin,” she says. With a huff, she grabs the remote.

Lake manages to out-huff Renee and stomps off toward the kitchen.

“I’m…not sure what’s going on with her,” Mia says with a nervous smile. “She’s been on this horror kick, so I think she just really wants to watch something gory?” she says, though the whole room knows that Lake’s problem is with Renee, not Victor or Benji.

Victor shrugs. “I mean, that’s fine. I just. No. It’s fine. It’s Halloween. We should watch something scary.”

“ _Aw_ ,” Renne says and clutches a hand to her chest, which is also dusted in a whole palette’s worth of highlighter. “Is someone still a little spooked about the murders?” she pouts.

Victor flips her off. “Eat a dick.”

“With pleasure. Benji, may I?”

“ _Oooo_ kay, I think that’s enough of that,” Benji says, forcing another smile. “Victor, how about we get something to drink?”

“Yeah, sure,” Victor says, narrowing his eyes at Renee as Benji grabs his hand and pulls him into the kitchen.

“Um. I’m. Also thirsty,” Fee says and hops up, clopping after them.

In the kitchen, Mia and Lake seem to be bickering, their voices tense and low. On the middle island in the kitchen sits a row of steins full of dry ice, their rims covered in something sticky and red.

Mia and Lake look up together as the trio enters the kitchen. Mia immediately smiles, but Lake crosses her arms and leans against the counter.

“Jinkies,” Fee says in an attempt to break the tension.

Victor and Benji both bring hands to their faces in a poor attempt to conceal their laughter, but Mia just lets it out. “I’m sorry, y’all. It’s not you. It’s—”

“It’s fucking Renee,” Lake says.

Mia shushes her and points to the other room, her eyes widened.

“Let her hear me, I don’t give a fuck,” Lake says. “This was _supposed_ to be just us, but that fucking _skank_ just had to stick around.”

“Lake, what did we say about—”

“I’m not slutshaming her, Mia. She’s a whore because of the way she treats people, not because of her bodycount.”

Mia raises her hands in surrender and turns away, grabbing a handle of vodka off the far counter and placing it on the island with the steins. Lake continues to pout as Mia procures an assortment of canned sodas from the fridge, then lines up some shot glasses.

“Okay, so we have vodka and mixers, and there’s dry ice in the glasses to make it witch’s brew or something,” she says with a sweeping gesture. “ _Lake’s idea, I don’t know_ ,” she mouths to Victor, whose confusion about the presentation must have been evident on his face.

He picks up one of the steins and turns it, the liquid oozing down the inside. “Is this…”

“Blood? Yes,” Lake says, already sounding a bit more cheerful.

“It’s raspberry syrup,” Mia says. “I say shots first, then drinks.”

“Please,” Lake agrees. “I’m gonna need it. Um. Sorry, Benji,” she says.

Benji shrugs. “All good. I’ll do a ‘shot’ with you, though,” he says, air quoting the word with his fingers. He grabs one of the shot glasses and cracks open an Orange Crush, then fills it to the brim.

Victor can’t help but smile; he kisses Benji on the cheek as Mia hands him a glass filled with vodka.

Once all five have their alcohol, Lake raises her glass. “To not dying!”

Benji glances at Victor, who laughs nervously. The others repeat the sentiment, then throw back the shots. Victor winces when the vodka hits his throat, and before he can even ask, Benji is shoving the can of soda into his hands. He takes a large gulp, then returns it to Benji. “Thanks,” he gasps. Victor’s never been a huge fan of shots, but the less time he spends sober tonight, the better.

Mia cracks open a bottle of cranberry juice as they mill about the kitchen, everybody mixing their drinks to their preference. Fee decides that cherry coke and vodka is the move, while Victor, Mia, and Lake all settle for a classic vodka cran. Benji takes one of the steins and fills it with the rest of his orange soda, which becomes a strange blood-orange hue when it combines with the syrup.

As they mix their drinks and delight in the way the dry ice bubbles and smokes (“Is this safe?” Victor mutters, to which Benji responds, “You’re already putting a mixture of alcohol and pure sugar in your body.”), Mia gives them a rundown on some new info she’s discovered.

“Apparently, this house is haunted as fuck,” she says deviously as she stirs her drink. She leans onto the counter and looks around the circle; Lake goes and turns off the lights, which leaves them in the dark, only the flickering light of a few candles in the corners of the enormous kitchen lighting the room.

Benji slips a hand into one of Victor’s back pockets and moves in close. Victor kisses him quickly as Mia launches into her story, Benji’s lips sticky and sweet.

“So, like, two hundred years ago, there was this widow who lived here with all of her children. She had _fourteen_ _kids_ or something disgustingly heterosexual like that. Anyway, the official reports say that someone broke in and murdered the whole family, but there was never any evidence of an actual break-in. The _rumor_ is that she went insane after her husband died and—”

“Drowned them all in the bathtub?” Lake asks excitedly.

Mia giggles. “No, it’s not the classic ‘drowned my baby’ thing. Plus, with fourteen kids, don’t you think they would’ve stopped her after the first or second went? It’s not exactly a subtle way to kill someone.”

Lake tilts her head. “Okay, fair. So, what happened?”

“Right,” Mia says and collects herself. “The stories haven’t quite agreed on how she killed them. Some people say it was gas, others are _sure_ she slit all of their throats while they were asleep. But what we _do_ know is that to dispose of the bodies, she took them all outside and fed them to her pigs.”

Fee murmurs, “Excellent,” while Lake breathes, “Oh, ew.”

Benji just rolls his eyes and gives Victor’s butt a little squeeze, then removes his hand from Victor’s pocket. “Sounds like bullshit to me.”

Mia looks at him, one eyebrow raised. “And what makes you such an expert?”

“I don’t know,” he says with a shrug. “You’d have to have a lot of pigs to eat through fourteen kids.”

“Funny you should say that. The reason it wasn’t immediately pinned on her in the first place is because she killed herself in the pigpen and her half-eaten body was found, along with some of her kids. If they had more pigs, I wonder how long it would’ve taken.”

“What about the bones?” Victor asks.

Mia grins. “Pigs will eat right through bone.”

“Okay, I think we’ve had enough of that,” Benji says. “We have a movie to watch, remember?”

“Right! Can we do A Nightmare on Elm Street?” Lake says, then takes a long swig from her straw. Everybody looks at each other; it seems nobody is in opposition. “Perfect!” she says, then grabs Mia by the hand and whisks her away into the next room.

Victor, Benji, and Fee follow after. Victor is rankled to find Renee sprawled out across the couch where he’d been sitting with Benji; they go to share one of the armchairs and cuddle up, but Renee jumps up.

“Oh, I was just keeping it warm for you,” she says, batting her lashes. “All you.”

Benji doesn’t bother to smile this time. “That’s okay, we’ll be fine here,” he says and plops down on Victor’s lap. He turns and gives Victor a smile, a kiss, and then returns his focus to the screen, where the movie has already started playing.

“Babe, can you—” Victor starts to ask, but Benji is already leaning forward and grabbing another Snickers bar for Victor. Benji unwraps it, takes a bite himself, then gently places the chocolate between Victor’s teeth.

“Fank you,” Victor says around the candy. Benji, still chewing, grins and taps Victor’s nose before facing front again and snuggling down into Victor’s lap. Victor decides to shed his mask and hat, at least so he can see the movie. He’ll put them back on when they take pictures later.

They make it through thirty minutes in silence, which is an odd occurrence for an event taking place at Theta. Theater kids are notoriously noisy, after all, but then again there’s no music to sing along to in A Nightmare on Elm Street.

There’s a collective sigh when Johnny Depp’s character shows up on screen wearing a crop top and powder blue sweatpants. Victor’s only seen this movie once before—Pilar had forced him to watch it with her when they were younger—and he remembers the absolute hellfire that burst out in his mind at the sight. Inner turmoil, a tug-of-war, a mixture of “I want to be like that” and “I want someone like that” and “I’m disgusted that I like that.”

Now, he wraps his arms around Benji’s toned, exposed midsection and kisses his boyfriend’s neck chastely. He sees Renee glance over and roll her eyes. She then rises dramatically from her seat and announces: “I’m going to get a drink.”

Everybody looks to her, and once she’s sure nobody is going to dignify her with a response, she huffs and rushes off to the kitchen.

Victor pulls Benji even closer as Nancy tries to warn Glen not to fall asleep, but her efforts prove futile. He watches through half-closed eyes as Freddy Krueger reaches up through Glen’s bed and pulls him down into the mattress. Fee gasps and Mia chuckles as Glen disappears down, down, and a geyser of blood gushes from the gaping hole in his bed, defying gravity and formed a roiling pool on his ceiling.

From the kitchen, there’s a scream and a large shatter.

Victor and Benji both gasp; Lake grabs the remote and hits pause, the blood geyser frozen on the screen.

“Renee?” Courtney calls. “Did you drop something?”

Victor holds his breath and waits for a response; after one second of silence, two, there’s a crunch, like someone’s stepped on glass. Then a moan.

“ _Renee_?” Courtney calls again, the panic in her voice ratcheting Victor’s heart rate up.

Another moan.

“What the hell—” Mia starts to say, and then Renee rounds the corner and staggers into the sitting room.

Benji jumps out of Victor’s lap. “ _Fuck_ ,” he hisses.

Renee is soaked in blood, red liquid pouring down her front in irregular spurts. Her mouth is open in a grotesque yawn, her knees turned inward as she shuffles over the tile.

“Oh my god,” Victor chokes, his stomach turning as he rises.

Before he can ask what happened, Renee collapses to the ground. Almost everybody screams—Victor certainly does, though he hadn’t meant to.

They all rush to where Renee lies, a lake pooling out around her immaculate angel wings, which are crooked, bent, as if she’d been in some kind of struggle.

“She’s not gonna be happy about those stains if she survives.”

“ _Victor_ ,” Mia and Benji both say, horrified.

Victor slaps a hand to his mouth. “I’m. So sorry. I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

“What the _fuck_ happened?” Lake gasps, her hands hovering over Renee’s body like she wants to help but doesn’t know how.

Millie whimpers. “We all heard the glass shatter, right? Maybe she dropped something and the glass flew up and caught her in the stomach?”

Victor shakes his head. “There’s no way.”

“Let’s just check and see what we can find,” Benji says. He starts toward the kitchen, but Lake leaps up and grabs his arm even before Victor can.

A strange look passes between them but Victor is too busy spiraling into his own anxiety to really notice. “Guys,” he says, hands trembling, “do you think this could be…?”

Mia gasps and covers her mouth. “Holy shit,” she whispers. “We need to get out of here, like, _right now_.”

“And just leave Renee?” Lake says, turning on her girlfriend.

Mia looks around, holding up her hands like she doesn’t know what to do. “Lake, there might be a _murderer_ in this fucking house right now. I—” she cuts herself off, looks down at Renee, and back to Lake. “I think it might be too late for her anyway.”

Lake takes a step back, something between shock an disgust playing on her face. “You’re serious?”

“We won’t be able to help at all if we’re also dead,” Mia says defensively. She pulls off her fake glasses and wraps her arms around herself, throwing Victor a terrified glance.

“I’m going to check the kitchen,” Benji repeats. Lake doesn’t try to stop him.

“I’m coming,” Victor says. No way is he letting Benji go off on his own if there’s a fucking murderer in the house. He reaches for Benji’s hand, grateful when he wordlessly takes it and gives Victor’s a squeeze.

They follow a snailtrail of blood to the kitchen, where it’s clear that some kind of minor struggle has taken place. As it turns out, the shattering sound had been the handle of vodka; the alcohol has mixed with another pool of blood, thinning it out and sending it splattering along the tile. Shards of glass litter the kitchen floor.

On the island sits a carving knife, dripping in blood.

“ _Oh my god_ ,” Victor gasps and clings tight to Benji’s arm. Benji winces as Victor digs his fingers into his bicep, but doesn’t pull away.

“Look, let’s just gather everybody and get the fuck out of here,” Benji growls and pulls Victor out of the kitchen.

“Should I call the police or something?” Victor asks frantically as he follows, his head turning this way and that, terrified that they’ll be next.

Benji shakes his head. “No, they’ll probably think it’s a prank call. Somebody murdered on Halloween? Likely story.”

“But,” Victor says, shaking his head, “Renee is _dying_ , Benji. We can’t just do nothing!”

Benji stops them before they reach the sitting room; he pulls Victor against a walls and cups his face in his hand. “Look at me, Vic.”

Victor glances over his shoulder, then over Benji’s, training his ears for any stray sounds.

“ _Victor_ ,” Benji insists.

Even in this moment of adrenaline, of pure fear and flight, of Victor’s muscles urging him to run and get as far away as he can, something about staring into Benji’s eyes pulls him back to the house, back to the room, makes his pulse stop motoring in his throat.

“You’re going to be fine. I promise, _we’re_ going to be fine. Our first order of business is getting the hell out of here, and then we can figure out next steps, okay?”

Victor nods, presses his lips together. Benji runs his hand down Victor’s cheek. “Okay, let’s get back and gather everyone so we can get out.”

Back in the sitting room, Courtney is crying, Millie is near catatonic, Fee is pacing and muttering to themself, and Mia and Lake are in the corner arguing.

“Let’s go, we’re leaving,” Benji says. “We’ll come back for Renee once we know it’s safe.”

Lake looks over from the corner, her eyes rimmed red. “Fine, let’s go,” she slurs.

Right. It can’t help that everybody but Benji is buzzed at least, if not completely drunk. Victor himself was on his way to proper intoxication, and he has a feeling his sobriety is only going to dwindle before it returns. It might be a blessing in disguise; if he were sober, he’s sure his heart would’ve stopped beating by now, anxiety consuming him altogether.

As a group, they rush the door. Lake gets there first and nearly slams up against it in an effort to wrench it open. She pushes, but it doesn’t budge.

“Oh my god,” Courtney says, her breath coming in gasps. “We’re barricaded in. _Oh my god_.”

Lake jiggles the handle, shoving her whole weight into the door. It creaks, pushing up against something outside, but doesn’t open at all. “ _FUCK_ ,” Lake screams and tears away from the door, running fingers through her hair.

“Kitchen door?” Millie asks.

A few nods from the group and they migrate down the hallway, past the sitting room and a bathroom and back into the kitchen.

And then the lights turn off.

There’s a collective scream and Victor finds himself hugging Benji, the world briefly thrown into mystery as his eyes adjust. One of the candles in the kitchen still burns, but the rest of been extinguished.

Lake huffs and suddenly there’s light: the flashlight on her phone. Fee and Courtney follow suit but Lake shuts them down. “Don’t waste your battery, we only need one.”

The other lights extinguish and the crew creeps through the kitchen. Victor gasps when he crunches down on a stray shard of glass, grateful for the thick rubber of his shoes that prevents injury. Benji gives him a squeeze; even in the low light, Victor can see the question on his face: _Are you okay_?

Victor nods and continues to move. When they reach the door that leads out from the kitchen into the expansive backyard—its perfect green grass, manicured trees, wrought-iron fence—Lake reaches for the doorknob.

But there isn’t a doorknob. It’s been removed.

Benji leaves Victor’s side and pushes up to the front of the group. “How the hell did someone have time to do this?”

“Probably right before they killed Renee,” Mia breathes. She replaces Benji by Victor’s side and wraps her hands around his upper arm. He’s shaking so much that he nearly misses the fact that Mia is, too.

A clang from somewhere deep in the house. Mia clenches down and Victor winces, the physical pain distracting him from his terror for a brief moment.

“We’re all gonna die here,” Millie says, her eyes wide and unfocused, trained on the floor. “We’re just gonna die. That’s it.”

Benji sighs and shakes his head, pushes back through the bodies. “I don’t think so,” he growls. “ _Who the fuck’s in here_?” he calls.

Roar of silence. Mia finally releases her grip with a careful exhale, her lips forming a tight ‘o.’

“I really think we need to call the cops,” Victor says.

Lake glares at him while she taps her foot. “If they even believe us, there’s no way they’ll rush here. We’re better off just getting the fuck out.”

Another crash in the distance, which causes a chorus of cries from the group. Victor sucks a breath in through his teeth, trying to remind his body that it needs to actually _do_ something with the oxygen he’s inhaling. Benji reappears at his other side and mirrors Mia’s hands, grabbing Victor’s left arm and holding tight.

“Where’s another door?” Benji asks.

“Uh, upstairs, we need to go upstairs,” Courtney says.

“Upstairs?” Victor asks, feeling that this is the worst possible choice, next only to splitting up.

Courtney nods, the gears turning. She nods fervently, the frog-eyes headband in her hair bobbing. “Right above us there’s a terrace with stairs that lead down into the yard.”

“Fine, let’s just go,” Victor says. His throat is so dry his Adam’s apple has probably shriveled up.

They hurry back through the kitchen, this time electing to go back through the sitting room to avoid the broken glass and the sticky puddle of blood and vodka as best they can.

A ghostly harmony of gasps as they round the corner.

“Where the _fuck_ is Renee?” Lake asks, and Victor can’t help but notice there’s a new layer of panic to her voice.

Mia walks over to the spot where Renee had been and crouches down. “It doesn’t look like there’s a trail leading away or anything,” she says breathlessly. “Is it possible she got up and walked away?”

“And went _where_?” Lake cries.

“I don’t know! Are you sure she was dead?”

Lake splutters, “How was I supposed to know if she was dead?”

“Did you check her pulse?”

“No, Mia, because I’m not like a _registered nurse_ ,” Lake spits. She exchanges glances with the rest of the group; even in the darkness, Victor can see her eyes are practically vibrating in fear. “Courtney, Millie…?” she asks, sounding hopeless.

The two girls both take a step back with their hands up. “We’ve been with you the whole time,” Courtney reminds her.

“Lake, maybe we should…” Millie starts, but trails off.

Lake shoots her an intense look then chews on the inside of her lip.

“Look, let’s just get the fuck out,” Mia says as she rises. “We can worry about this once we’re sure nobody else is in danger, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, good idea,” Lake says.

As they pass back through the sitting room toward the stairs, Fee sidles up next to Victor. “Are you good?” they ask.

Victor gapes at them. “I—what? No, I’m not _good_. How are you so calm right now?”

They shrug. “Might be a cool way to go.”

“You can’t be serious,” Benji says, a hint of a smile beneath his horror.

“Maybe we’ll get to stick around and haunt the joint, I don’t know!”

“Not if it means me have to get fed to pigs,” Victor says, and though the thought is macabre, something about joking with his best friend helps him process the terror of the situation.

They reach the stairs, which sit directly across from the front door. Not a word is uttered as they take them upward, working as hard as they can to keep their pace efficient but their noise level as low as possible.

Once at the top, there’s a pause. The hallway branches off in two opposite directions. _Why the fuck does this house have to be so big?_

“Right or left?” Fee asks, bouncing nervously.

“It’s faster if we—”

A disturbance from the bottom of the stairs. Victor whips around so quickly his neck cracks; there’s a figure at the bottom, hooded, splattered in blood, a cracked hockey mask covering their face.

The seconds that follow are chaos. Screams deafen Victor, the pitches a horrible concoction of the worst frequencies a human voice can produce, clanging in his ears and sending him off balance. The figure raises a hatchet over their head and hurls it; the blade wedges into the stair second from the top with a _thwack_. It vibrates violently as the figure starts to hulk up the stairs, their boot-clad feet thunking with each clumsy step.

Victor falls onto his ass and scrambles backward, away, not sure where he’s going but sure that he needs to get away—not even sure, really, because it’s not so much a cerebral response as a physical one, this need to flee, to live. He gets to his feet and stumbles down the hallway to the right, and once he regains his footing he turns to find that he’s alone.

Everybody else seems to have chosen the opposite direction; Victor can hear the rumble of their collective panicked footfalls around the far corner, and, closer, the steady _thunk, thunk, thunk_ of the figure reaching the stop of the stairs.

He swallows down a scream and continues on, knowing it’ll be better if he just goes around the other side and meets everybody on the terrace.

When Victor turns the corner, his organs nearly drop out of his body. At the farthest end of the hallway is _another_ figure. At first Victor thinks it’s a statue because of how still it is. Hulking, deformed, it isn’t until they turn their head that Victor’s nerves truly glaciate. The gruesome mask covering their head makes his stomach turn even from down the hallway.

A pig’s head, withered and leathery. The skin has been painted a horrible shade of grayish-brown with white circles around the eyes, the snout dripping something red and viscous onto the floor. As they turn their body all the way around, Victor notices the tattered baby doll hanging from one hand, and from the other, an enormous meat cleaver. As they rotate, the blade catches a stray moonbeam; it’s coated in a dark layer of red.

“ _Victor_?” comes Benji’s voice. “ _Victor, where did you go_?”

The figure turns toward Benji’s voice. Victor freezes, unsure if they’ve even seen him. Then he hears the _thunk, thunk, thunk_ of the first butcher off to his left and realizes he can’t just hang tight. He needs to _go._

Victor scans the hallway, his heart flailing wildly against his ribcage, every erratic beat pulsing into the tips of his fingers, his eyes. Halfway between himself and Pig-head the hallway breaks off to the left. He’s only been on the second floor once or twice, but he seems to remember that this hallway might take him all the way down to intersect with the hallway that leads to the terrace.

Hockey-mask is now at the top of the stairs, their head cocked to the side and the hatchet returned to their grip. Victor looks back and forth between the two figures and hopes that Pig-head’s size will prevent them from beating Victor to safety.

Before he can talk himself out of it, Victor breaks into a sprint, cursing Benji for making him wear these stupid rubber boots, cursing this whole fucking night. The potent mixture of alcohol and dread seems to be hindering his movements, but the adrenaline helps him push through. Pig-head doesn’t even seem to notice; they’re looking downward, the tips of their pig ears the only thing Victor can really see. Before Victor can reach his destination, they shuffle off to the left, down a hallway that runs parallel to Victor’s planned escape route.

Victor almost wipes out as he turns the corner, his pulse hitting four times for each _thunk_ of Hockey-mask’s steps; they’ve just come into the hallway where Pig-head had just been. Up ahead Victor can see a substantial spot of moonlight, which indicates to him that the terrace must be at the end.

Victor makes the mistake of looking back and seeing that Hockey-mask is still in hot pursuit, dragging one of their legs along in an unsettling skip-limp kind of motion, hatchet held high over their head. His mouth fills with bile but he forces it back down. Benji’s name almost rises to replace it, but the last thing he wants is to alert Pig-head of his location. For a brief second he wonders if the other murderer somehow knows the layout of the house, if they’re going to be waiting at the end of the hallway for Victor. But he puts the thought out of his head and careens around another corner.

 _Yes_. The terrace is right in front of him. As he hits the door, he wonders if everybody else has made it out okay, hopes they’ll be waiting for him in the yard at the bottom of the stairs.

The door is locked. _The door is locked_. Victor’s breath catches as he tries again, the handle slippery in his sweaty palm.

“No, no, no,” he mutters to himself, tears obscuring his vision as he tries again, more forcefully, to no result. “ _FUCK_ ,” he shouts and slams the heel of his hand against the door, which sends a jolt of pain up his arm. He hisses and pulls it close to his chest, the _thunk, thunk, thunk_ approaching.

His only option is to turn around, make his way past the hallway he’d just been in, and get back down the stairs. What he’ll do once back on the first floor he has no clue, but his legs are already moving; his window will be small, as Hockey-mask is about to reach the end of the connecting hall.

He motors past and risks a glance to his left; Hockey-mask is in fact right at the end of the hallway, but something about the shock of Victor sprinting past seems to stop them in their tracks, if only for a second.

Victor almost trips around this final corner, then nearly breaks his neck taking the stairs four at a time, and suddenly he’s on the first floor again. The sitting room is in his line of sight, the pool of blood that used to be Renee. He doesn’t know where any of the other doors in the house are located so his brain forces him back into the kitchen, quietly, now that Hockey-mask probably doesn’t know his exact location.

He sneaks back over to the knob-less door, slips his finger into the bolt device and wonders if he can find a way to get it open sans the knob. He throws frantic glances over his shoulder as he works, his breath high and short in his ears, but he can’t seem to get the door to open. “Please, please,” he begs and leans in closer to get a better look.

A noise behind him.

Victor straightens and turns to find Hockey-mask directly behind him. “ _NO_ ,” he screams and throws his hands in front of him. He backs against the door, slamming his skull into the unmoving wood as he does. Victor’s knees give out and he slides down the door, his feet pushing wildly against the slick tile floor, but there’s nowhere to go.

The shrieks that emit from his mouth aren’t in his control; Hockey-mask steps closer, and closer, hatchet raised, pace like a wolf approaching an injured rabbit.

“ _PLEASE, I DON’T WANT TO DIE,_ ” Victor wails, “ _I’LL DO ANYTHING, PLEASE, PLEASE—_ ”

“Okay, this has fucking gone far enough!”

Victor’s world freezes over, then shatters as Benji’s voice rings through the kitchen. “Just fucking stop already, can’t you see he’s had enough?”

Victor’s throat has closed in on itself and he can’t see well through his tears, but suddenly Benji’s beside Hockey-mask, suddenly everybody is in the kitchen, gathered in a concerned semicircle around Victor.

“I don’t—” Victor says and shakes his head, his voice strangled. “I don’t understand.”

Hockey-mask drops the hatchet, reaches up, and removes the covering from their face. _Holton_.

“But—what?” Victor says, tears and snot streaming down his face. Benji crouches down beside him; Victor has never seen his boyfriend so enraged.

“I’m so sorry, Vic. It was a stupid prank, but somehow things just went way further than they were supposed to.”

Victor wipes a sleeve across his face. “You _knew_?”

“I…” Benji bites his lip, and his rage shifts into guilt. He can’t seem to look Victor in the eye. “Lake told me that she was planning something small.”

Lake steps forward. “It was _supposed_ to be a way to show you how ridiculous you are for being afraid of these stupid murders or whatever,” she says defensively. “Shit like this doesn’t really happen.”

Victor gapes at his friends—though he’s not sure he wants to call them that anymore. “Fee? You knew, too?”

Fee grabs their left write with their right hand, head hung. “I’m sorry, Victor. Lake promised me she would introduce me to this guy I have a crush on…” they start, but trail off.

“Mia?” Victor asks, a hiccup hijacking his body for a moment.

Lake shakes her head. “Mia didn’t know until right after we got separated. Someone else had to be clueless to really sell it. Plus, she’s a terrible actor.”

“Victor, I’m _so_ sorry,” Mia says. “I really had no idea what was going on.”

“Yeah, she didn’t,” Courtney and Millie both say with firm nods. They look sobered, but also subtly proud of themselves.

 _Fucking theater kids_.

Still trembling, Victor gets to his feet with Benji’s help, then pulls out of his grip. “Why did you let them do this?” he whimpers, humiliation crawling over his skin like he’s tripped into a nest of fire ants.

“I didn’t know the details, Vic, so I didn’t think we’d end up _here_.”

“But you could’ve stopped it as soon as you realized it was happening,” he insists.

Benji opens his mouth to speak, then pauses with a frustrated sigh. “I mean…I guess there’s part of me that…sort of agrees with Lake?”

“ _What_?”

“Well, it’s all you’ve thought about for the past two days, babe. You can’t just go about your life constantly worried that someone’s out to kill you.”

Mia pushes past Benji and slips her arm through Victor’s. “Maybe we should just get you back to your dorm, huh?” she asks him quietly, as if the whole room can’t hear everything that’s being said.

“Bro, I don’t think I’ve ever seen somebody so scared,” Holton says, an infuriating grin on his face. “Where’s Renee, by the way?”

“Yeah, good question. _Renee? Stop fucking hiding, prank’s over!_ ” Lake huffs and crosses her arms. “I thought _you_ would know where she crawled off to, dickhole. The two of you went so far off script, I was starting to get genuinely scared. And my mascara isn’t waterproof, so we would’ve had _issues_.”

Still blinking back tears, Victor leans into Mia. Benji looks at him, all apologetic and remorseful, but Victor can’t look his boyfriend in the eye right now. Then he remembers what he’d seen upstairs.

“Wait. Who’s the other killer?” Victor asks.

The room goes dead quiet.

Lake clears her throat. “Um, what do you mean?”

“The…the other killer,” Victor says insistently, “the one in the pig mask?”

Mia leans away from him and looks up, concern on her face. “Victor, what the hell are you talking about?”

“It was just Holton,” Lake says and wraps her arms around herself. “Aside from us, Holton was the only other person here.”

Victor shakes his head, his throat tightening again. “No, there’s…there’s someone else.”

Lake turns to Holton. “Are you the one who took the knob off this door?” she asks, pointing with a shaking finger.

Holton lifts his hands. “I didn’t fucking touch the doors, except for locking the front one.”

“Holy fuck,” Victor pants. “There’s somebody else in the house.”

Everybody goes quiet again, all the air sucked out of the room and held tight in their chests.

Upstairs, a floorboard creaks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a reminder, this fic is part of the [Halloween 2020 LV Fic Fest](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/venjihalloween2020)! If you want to post a spooky fic yourself or just want to read some more festive LV fic, go check it out!
> 
> Also, I would like to plug the [Love Victor Fic Writers Discord server](https://discord.gg/4qHNt3U), which is where a lot of the organizing and such for events like the fic fest takes place, as well as discussion of the show and other assorted fun and chaos. Come join us if that sounds like your jam!
> 
> ALRIGHT I am done plugging things. Can't wait to hear what y'all think of this one <33


	3. Dumb, Dead Whore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi y'all! Just as a warning, this chapter is PRETTY heavy on the gory stuff (heheh so much fun to write). I know it's tagged, but just wanted to give you a heads up!! <3

“Did you hear that?” Victor breathes.

Lake huffs and shakes her head. “It’s an old house. I didn’t hear anything.”

“So which is it?” Mia asks.

“ _SHHH_ ,” Victor insists.

The room goes quiet. Again, from the floor above, the unmistakable sound of footfalls. Lake inhales a sharp breath and Millie lets out a little cry.

“Victor, you’re _sure_ you saw somebody else?” Mia asks, her voice thin, full of breath.

He nods. “At the end of the far hall on the second floor,” he rasps. “And then they sort of just…shuffled off, I don’t know.” His body is still worn down from his fit of terror, muscles pulsing with adrenaline and pulse thick and strong in his throat.

“Renee?” Holton calls. “ _Renee_?”

“ _HOLTON_ ,” Lake hisses. “Shut the fuck up, do you want to give away where we are?”

“I don’t think our location is much of a secret,” Fee mumbles to themself, to which Lake just responds with a middle finger.

Holton throws down his mask and starts out of the kitchen, following the red trail that Renee left. Lake stomps off after him, Courtney and Millie exchange a look and follow, and Mia gives Victor a quick glance before following her girlfriend.

Fee looks between Victor and Benji and the rest of the group, throws Victor an apologetic smile, then trots off with the pack.

“Victor,” Benji says and reaches for his hand, but Victor snatches it away.

“Don’t touch me,” he says, fresh tears forming in his eyes. “I can’t believe you would go along with something like that.” Victor clenches his jaw, trying not to lapse back into hysteria. “Especially after what you said right before we showed up. You _knew_ , and you still told me that it was valid to be afraid. You fucking lied right to my face, Benji.” He starts off after the group.

With a huff, Benji lunges for Victor and grasps his shoulder. “ _Wait_ , Victor,” he says.

Victor freezes in place but refuses to look at Benji; he crosses his arms and looks at the ground.

“I’m really sorry, okay?” Benji says. His voice is thick, he’s obviously trying not to cry. “I didn’t think it would go this far, and then in the heat of the moment I just sort of went along with it. I can’t even tell you how sorry I am.”

“Whatever,” Victor mutters, suddenly remembering that there might be genuine danger lurking above them. “We need to get out of here.”

“ _RENEE_ ,” comes Holton’s anguished voice from the sitting room, followed by several people warning him to shut the fuck up. Victor sprints out of the kitchen, away from Benji, who may or may not be following—Victor doesn’t care—and finds the group back around the spot where Renee’s body previously lay.

Holton is pacing back and forth, one hand in a white-knuckle fist and the other swishing the hatchet back and forth. His face is aflame, like all of his capillaries have burst. When Victor enters the room, he locks on and rushes forward. “ _You_ ,” he spits, pointing the hatcher at Victor.

Benji must have followed close behind because he throws himself between Victor and Holton immediately, his arms out. “Victor had nothing to do with this.”

“What’s going on?” Victor asks, looking to Mia.

“It’s real blood,” Lake says, two dark lines down her cheeks from her mascara running. “It’s. The blood. It’s real.”

“It was supposed to just be that raspberry syrup Lake was using in the drinks,” Mia explains in a hushed tone. “But this is definitely real.”

Victor takes a step back, the wind knocked out of him. “So…”

“Holy fucking shit,” Benji says and lowers his hands. “Did we…?”

Nobody says anything, but Mia presses her lips together and nods. “I think maybe. But if not…”

“We have to _find_ her,” Holton says. “This hatchet is real, I’ll fucking kill the bastard!”

“Calm down,” Benji says, which is a huge mistake. Holton closes the space between them and shoves a trembling finger in Benji’s face.

Despite his current emotions, Victor finds himself screaming, “Don’t touch him!” and trying to reprise Benji’s action by stepping between them, but Holton shoves him away. Victor trips over his own feet and hits the floor hard, pain shooting up his wrists and into his elbows.

“ _Boys_!” Lake shouts. “This is literally the most inconveniently timed dick-measuring contest in the history of dick-measuring contests! Get your fucking shit together!”

Mia helps Victor to his feet as Lake inserts herself between Benji and Holton. “Look, let’s just…go back into the kitchen,” she says with a heavy exhale. “We’ll turn the lights back on, call the cops, and make a plan to get the fuck out of here. _And_ —” she starts as Holton opens his mouth, “we should wait until help gets here until we do anything about Renee. It’s just not safe.”

“I’m not fucking waiting around while some freak in a mask is torturing my girlfriend,” Holton says and adjusts his grip on the hatchet.

Mia steps forward and places a tentative hand on his arm. “Holton, I don’t think…I don’t think…”

“You don’t think _what_?”

“It’s just—You didn’t _see_ her,” Mia says. “We thought the prank was just really convincing, that her acting was just really good, but now that we know the blood was real—”

“She is _not_ dead, she can’t be!” Holton screams.

Mia flinches and backs away.

Victor takes her hand and pulls her closer to him as he glares at Holton. “Turning on each other isn’t going to make this any better,” he says, the words shivering in his mouth, anxiety so deep-rooted his vocal chords tremble. “How do we get the lights back on?”

“Basement,” Lake says, eyes wide. “Breaker box is in the basement, down through the kitchen.”

Benji huffs and scrubs a hand across his face. “Why do we need the fucking lights? Let’s just leave.”

“If you hadn’t noticed, Benji, the two main ways in and out of the house on the first floor are blocked.”

“Not the front door,” Holton says and rolls his eyes. “It’s just locked.”

“No, it’s not,” Lake says, panic rising in her voice again. “I _thought_ it was, but when we were trying to ‘get out’ earlier I actually did unlock it, but it still wouldn’t open. Something’s blocking it from the other side.”

“Fucking perfect,” Benji mutters.

Fee inches close to Victor, who takes his best friend’s hand and gives it a squeeze. “Don’t worry. Strength in numbers,” Victor murmurs. Fee nods, but the terror in their eyes hasn’t faded at all.

“Okay, so we go down into the basement.” Victor asks. “If we all go together, we should be fine.”

“Or this psychopath will lock us all down there and we’ll have nowhere to go,” Courtney says. This earns her several aghast looks, to which she just replies with a defensive shrug. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

“Do we have spare doorknobs anywhere?” Millie asks, one finger in her mouth as she gnaws on a fingernail.

Lake places her hands on her hips and cocks her head. “Millie. Who the _fuck_ keeps _spare doorknobs_ around?”

“We need to stop arguing and just start considering actual options!” Victor shouts, surprised at his own volume. “The terrace door was locked, but it didn’t look like there was anything on the other side. Is there a key?”

Lake, Courtney, and Millie exchange a look.

“What?” Victor asks, desperate for at least _one_ viable choice of escape.

Lake gulps. “Renee always kept the keys on her. They’re either in her room, or—”

“ _WHY DOES IT MATTER_?” Holton roars. “Nobody leaves until we find Renee!”

“Tone down the testosterone, good _god_ ,” Lake says, a different kind of fear creeping into her voice.

Despite the blood rushing in his ears, Victor’s attention is drawn upward by an odd creaking sound. He follows the sound with his eyes, his gaze starting at Holton and traveling upward to land on the ornate glass chandelier that decorates the ceiling of the sitting room. The chandelier, which seems to be swaying slightly.

“ _NO_ ,” Holton continues. “I am _so tired_ of you fucking whores and how jealous you are of Renee!” he says with a sweeping gesture at all of the women in the room. “Did you forget that you wouldn’t even fucking _be_ in this house if it weren’t for her? Right, no, we always seem to forget that detail, don’t we!”

“Uh, Holton,“ Victor says, mouth dry. Up above, the fixture squeaks and drops half an inch. Fee grabs at Victor’s arm in panic, their head also craned upward.

“Fucking shut it, Salazar!” Holton says, cramming his eyes shut and lifting the hatchet to point at Victor. “I don’t give a fuck if you’re gay or whatever, but I’m so tired of you and your boyfriend showing up here and treating this place like it’s your own fucking house!”

“They do _not_ ,” Lake says, disgusted. “I don’t love the way you said ‘gay or whatever’ just now, either.”

Mia takes a step backward when she sees where Victor and Fee are looking. “ _Holton_ ,” she insists as the chandelier dips once more.

“ _EVERYBODY JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP_.”

These are Holton’s final words before the chandelier dislodges from the ceiling. It falls with a delicate tinkling sound, its glass pieces tickling each other as the enormous fixture descends as if in slow motion. After a collective gasp and a step away from him, Holton finally shuts his mouth and looks upward as the chandelier makes contact, sending a glass rod through his exposed neck and then forcing his body into the floor.

What was at first a gentle breeze of a sound becomes a hurricane as the chandelier’s full weight meets the tile floor. A thousand pieces of glass explode and send shards flying through the air like so many flakes of razorblade snow. The screams around Victor are almost completely drowned out by the thunderous sonic eruption.

Victor loses himself in the milliseconds that follow, but the next thing he knows there’s another body on top of him and a sea of glass chunks surrounding him on all sides, varying from minuscule grains to pieces the size of golf balls.

“Oh my fucking god,” comes a voice from the other side of the room, Lake’s, maybe.

Victor blinks away his panic as Benji pushes away from him. “Benji,” he breathes when he sees that several stray shards have lodged themselves into Benji’s skin, on his face, down his arms, his exposed midsection. “Did you…?”

Benji grimaces and carefully stands, trying to avoid larger fragment as he finds his footing and helps Victor up after him.

“Why?”

He shrugs and winces as Victor reaches up to caress his cheek, a bit of Benji’s blood smearing across the tips of his fingers in the process. “Sorry,” he whispers. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Benji says. He bats Victor’s hand away and grips the exposed glass, sliding it out with a pained gasp.

“You shouldn’t have—”

“Well, I did,” Benji says. “And I’d do it again.”

“Holton,” Mia says, then retches.

Victor looks around Benji and his vision goes white for a moment, blood pressure bottoming out and leaving his head fuzzy.

Holton—or what use to be Holton—has gone the way of the chandelier. His body has fractured into several large pieces and about four times as many smaller ones; most of the broken glass directly around the crash zone is stained red, and a larger more spare circle of blood sprays out beyond that.

Fighting the thought that the bastard probably deserved it, Victor leans against Benji’s shoulder and forces a few breaths in an attempt to stay conscious. A voice cries out from what sounds like miles away. Benji reaches up and places his hands on Victor’s cheeks. “It’s okay,” he whispers, “just look at me, I’ve got you. Just look at me.” And Victor does. He looks into Benji’s eyes, still lined with black, his face flecked with scarlet specks.

After a few seconds his vision returns and the white noise in his veins fades as blood rushes back up to his head. His stomach still aches, and it only turns again when someone vomits—Millie, he thinks, but his eyes are squeezed shut, focused on Benji’s fingers against his face, the smell of Benji’s deodorant.

Finally the moment passes and he opens his eyes, still looking directly at Benji. And then he remembers the trick Benji had been in on, how he’d let things go too far and then some.

Victor pulls away and bites down on the knuckle of his pointer finger, still fighting the urge to puke.

“Victor—”

“I’m fine,” he growls around his finger. He wipes a sleeve across his face; not even the bright red of the fabric is able to disguise the color of Benji’s blood coming off his skin.

Suddenly Mia is at his side, dragging him along. “Everyone get into the kitchen,” she shouts, her voice wavering. Glass crunches underfoot as Victor allows her to yank him into the next room.

“How the fuck does that even happen?” Lake asks and power walks to catch up to them. Her face is blotchy and her eyes red, but her voice alone gives away the fact that she’s just been sobbing.

“They dug into the ceiling,” Courtney says as she catches up, lugging a green-looking Millie along with her. If the situation weren’t so dire, Victor would laugh at the sight of sexy Kermit supporting a seasick pirate. “There was a hole in the ceiling where the chandelier was attached. They must have just broken through the floor upstairs and released it that way.”

“But that means—” Fee starts.

“—that they know the layout of the house well enough to know exactly where the chandelier was,” Mia finishes, wiping her hands on her skirt. “We need to get out, and it needs to be _now_.”

They’ve now formed a small circle in the kitchen, frequently casting panicked glances over their shoulders. Each of them is still yanking tiny glass shards from their skin, casting them aside with disgusted grunts.

“Right,” Benji says. Victor catches his eye across the circle and quickly averts his gaze. Now that he’s more or less returned to his body, there are a few sharp stings up and down his body where glass used to be tucked neatly between the warm membrane of his skin. Benji hadn’t been able to protect him after all. Not entirely. “We need to go to Renee’s room, find the key to the terrace, and get out.”

“It’s not there,” Lake says, shaking her head furiously. “I just remembered the only way to lock the door in the first place is with the key.”

“What?” Victor asks.

Lake sighs. “It’s an old house. Some of the doors didn’t get updated because they felt the renovations were better focused elsewhere. So if it’s locked, that means they already have the key.”

“Besides, going up to the second floor is a stupid idea,” Victor says with a glare at his boyfriend. “In case you’d forgotten, that’s where the psychopathic murderer is.”

“Fucking perfect,” Benji says and runs his fingers through his hair. “At this point, shouldn’t we just consider breaking down the door? There’s already been enough damage,” he says with a vague gesture in the direction of the sitting room.

“Yeah, fine,” Lake says. “Anything to get the fuck out of here. You know how to break down a door?” she asks Benji.

He clears his throat. “Uh, why me?”

Lake rolls her eyes and waves a hand up and down his body. “With Holton, um, _incapacitated_ , you’re the closest we’ve got to brawn.”

“Can I at least finish getting the fucking glass out of my body?”

Lake rolls her eyes. “If you must.”

Mia helps Benji with the pieces he can’t reach, the ones that probably would’ve lodged themselves into Victor had Benji not thrown his body between Victor and the chandelier. Victor crosses his arms, all of the shards already removed from his own skin, nothing but a hot, wet sting to remind him.

Benji sighs and cracks his knuckles, the pops like firecrackers in the silent kitchen. An echo of glass hell still plays strident in Victor’s head as Benji approaches the knobless door, looking nothing short of ridiculous in his crop top and booty shorts, about to make an attempt at breaking them out of this hell house.

He stops awkwardly at his destination and turns around. “Um. Here goes, I guess?”

Fee gives him an enthusiastic double thumbs up. “You got this!”

Lake flips her hands over and wiggles her head as if to say ‘go on, we’re waiting,’ which earns her a brief, cutting look from Benji (one Victor is sure he’s the only person to notice, since Benji can be so subtle with his _looks_ ).

Benji clears his throat and rolls his shoulders back, then pulls his arms across his chest, one at a time. Even covered in blood and open wounds, it’s a sight to behold; if he weren’t so angry, Victor would be watching the muscles in Benji’s lower back flexing, his biceps, his butt as he bounces up and down on his heels to psych himself up.

But Victor is angry, so he definitely doesn’t notice any of those things.

The group waits with hands clenched and palms moist as Benji rears back; he steps back with his right leg, then lunges forward, pivoting on his left and sending the entirety of his weight into his right foot as it collides with the place where the doorknob used to be. A wooden splinter crackles through the room but the door doesn’t open.

“ _FUCK, OW_!” Benji screams. Fee lets out a sympathetic “Ooh.” Benji places his foot down and sucks in a breath through his teeth, immediately picking it up again.

“Oh, god,” Mia mutters as she rushes to his side and allows Benji to lean on her shoulder as he limps back toward the group.

Lake forces a smile as she curls her fingers in and out. “Okay, so that’s obviously not going to work.”

To Victor’s left, Millie has started to breathe in frantic snaps. “This isn’t happening,” she mutters to herself. “Not happening, not happening.”

“Hey,” Victor whispers to her as Benji rejoins the circle and the attention is elsewhere. “We’re gonna be fine. There’s gotta be another way out, right?”

Millie’s attention snaps to him, her eyes wide and blank. “Front door,” she says.

“It’s blocked,” Victor reminds her.

She shakes her head, looking dazed. “Have to see for myself.”

“Wait, Millie—” Victor says, but even as he reaches out to grab her shoulder she darts away toward the hallway, going around the long way to the foyer. “Millie!” he calls and runs after her. He hears Lake and Courtney follow after, grateful that he won’t be alone.

When they turn the corner Millie is already at the front door, both hands on the handle. Her eyes are frenzied—Victor can tell even from down the hall—and she desperately yanks and pushes back and forth to no avail. She starts to scream, panicked, high-pitched grunts that go off like gunshots in the house. “ _OPEN—FUCKING OPEN,_ ” she wails.

Before Victor can even get halfway down the hall, the world screeches to a halt. From the lefthand side the figure with the pig’s head melts out of the shadows, emerging from the walk-in coat closet that sits directly next to the front door.

“ _Millie_!” Courtney shrieks, but as Millie turns it’s already too late.

Victor cries out and almost falls to his knees as Pig-head lurches forward and drives the meat cleaver into Millie’s back. She doesn’t even scream as the life leaves her, but the specter of horror is still etched into her features as her eyes roll back.

Victor throws his arms out to cover Courtney and Lake as Pig-head withdraws the blade an inch or two, then drives it once more into Millie’s body with a gruesome squish. Lake takes in a high gasp and her hands fly to cover her mouth as the figure adjusts the grip on their weapon, then slowly lifts Millie’s body into the air. The tip of the blade pokes out between her ribs. Viscous red drips from her lifeless figure, down the figure’s arm and onto the floor. The doll in their left hands dangles and swings, blood smeared across its face.

“Back, back, back,” Victor mutters to Courtney and Lake, trying to push them toward the kitchen, but Courtney pushes back.

“ _MILLIE_ ,” she howls and tries to break forward, but Lake helps Victor in holding her back.

“Let her go,” Lake says through tears and gritted teeth. “Do you have a fucking _death wish_?”

With Lake’s assistance Victor manages to drag Courtney back into the kitchen, where Mia, Fee, and Benji are waiting with cryptic panic on their faces.

“What—” Benji starts to ask, but Victor cuts him off.

“Basement,” he says. “We need to get down into the basement.”

Lake is still holding onto Courtney, who’s stopped struggling and has switched to silent sobs.

“What the fuck just happened?” Mia asks.

“ _Basement, now!”_ Victor snaps.

Mia recoils and blinks at him but says nothing more as she helps Benji toward the door, which is back in the direction of the hallway.

In the distance, there’s a wet _thump_. Victor winces and waves frantically toward the door, ushering everybody down.

Lake wrenches the door open and pushes Benji and Mia in before her. Fee follows after, their shoes in their hands, and then Victor. He grabs the doorknob and is about to shut the door behind them, but Courtney is still standing in the middle of the kitchen, her arms at her sides and her chin at her sternum.

“Courtney!” Victor hisses and gestures wildly for her to follow, but she just bites down on her lip and shakes her head. “What the _fuck_ are you doing?” he yell-whispers.

“I can’t believe you just left her,” Courtney says, then hiccups, tears still running down the bridge of her nose and onto the floor.

Victor’s hand quakes against the knob. “Look, we can discuss moral responsibilities later, will you _please_ just get the fuck over here?” he asks. With the door open he can’t see into the hallway, but the sound of heavy, deliberate footsteps have his heart beating up in his nasal cavity, nerves jolting. It’s taking everything in him to not just slam the door.

Courtney looks at him again, then seems to get a clue and notice the sound of nearing steps. “Fine,” she says with a sniffle, and Victor has no idea how she can be so insolent in the face of grave danger, but somehow she manages to pout and stomp her way over to the top of the staircase with all the grace a spoiled child. “I’ll never forgive you for this,” she insists.

“Victor, what’s going on?” Fee calls from the bottom of the stairs.

“It’s okay,” Victor calls back, then turns to Courtney. “Fine, hate me forever,” Victor says, not feeling all that bad for having saved her life. She starts past him and her foot is on the first step when a thick arm reaches around the door, gropes blindly for purchase, then grabs Courtney by the back of her fitted green sweater. The frog eyes on her headband bobble wildly and she screeches as Pig-head yanks her backward.

“ _COURTNEY_ ,” Victor screams and reaches out to pull her back, but she’s already out of reach.

Pig-head is now in full view, the moonlight spilling into the kitchen highlighting their freakish mask; from what Victor can see, it really is just a whole pig’s face stuck onto their own. From this distance, he can see the paint on the head more clearly.

It’s a crude imitation of clown makeup, the whole face putrid gray with dingy white circles around the eyes. The snout is drenched in red—not paint. Blood. It covers the whole snout and smears to either side in a sinister smile.

“Let her go,” Victor pleads, his voice breaking. The figure turns toward him, cocks their head to the side. Their hand is now around Courtney’s throat and she thrashes her legs, choking out Victor’s name over and over, the word hardly audible as thick, gloved fingers close around her windpipe.

Pig-head releases their grip, only to grab Courtney by the hair and yank her an inch into the air.

“ _VICTOR_ ,” she wails, one final time, a sound like cars colliding, before the hand holding both machete and blood-covered doll arcs soundlessly through the air, moonlight catching on the bloody blade right before it passes through Courtney’s neck with a revolting _thunk_.

He doesn’t stick around to see how the situation plays out; Victor wrenches the door shut with a cannonshot slam which rings violent in his ears. And somehow, it’s not loud enough to drown out the sound of Courtney’s head hitting the floor.

Victor clicks the lock shut and fights a frenzied, hopeless laugh; what’s a puny lock going to do to protect them against this psychopath?

“What the _fuck_ just happened?” comes Lake’s panicked voice. With all of the sensory input, Victor is somehow just now realizing that in closing the door he’s plunged them all into complete darkness.

Before he can respond, he misjudges his positioning at the top of the stairs and misses the second step down. In a moment of complete chaos and confusion Victor tumbles down the stairs, his head hitting the concrete several times as he goes and his limbs flailing wildly. At the bottom he collides with something fleshy, and when she cries out in surprise he realizes it’s Lake.

Everything is silent for a moment.

“Victor, are you all right?” Mia whispers.

He’s facedown on the floor, cold and hard. “Not really,” he manages to whisper back. “Not being able to see anything doesn’t help.” When warm liquid runs into his eye, he gasps; he’s bleeding from his forehead. There will be bruises up and down his limbs tomorrow—if tomorrow is even a thing anymore.

“Victor, where’s Courtney?” Fee asks, but the tone of their voice indicates that they already know the answer. Victor’s silence that follows is the only confirmation needed; Lake lets out a a terrified sob and Mia murmurs something inaudible.

“I…I tried,” Victor says. “She just—she just _stood_ there,” he says as he sits up, presses his back against the wall. “I tried, I really tried—”

“Shh,” someone says from next to him, and suddenly there are arms pulling him away from the wall, into an embrace. It’s a familiar touch, one he’s felt a thousand times, and even though part of him wants to push Benji away, knock him onto his ass on the cold cellar floor, he allows Benji to hold him as he cries, terror and exhaustion rolling through him like a stormy weather system. He can feel warm blood against his skin, Benji’s symphony of wounds emptying themselves onto Victor, scent of iron heady and thick in his nostrils.

Victor is vaguely aware of mutterings between Mia, Lake, and Fee, and he’s all too aware of the flimsy door that stands between them and a maniac who’s already killed four of their friends (though “friends” is a term that is slippery and loose in this case), but he can’t stop himself from clutching Benji’s back, pressing his forehead into Benji’s shoulder as it all comes out. It’s not the same panic as he’d felt earlier in the kitchen. It’s more primal, more defeated, and it pours out of him as naturally as blood.

And then the emotion clots when he hears, from the top of the stairs: _knock, knock, knock_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I'm not sure what I'm more concerned about. Their literal lives, or whether or not Venji is going to make it out of this together :,(
> 
> Please leave me a comment if you're enjoying this!! I love to hear y'all's thoughts and comments make me  
> 


	4. Bitch Apple, Bitch Tree

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELL YEAH, another chapter! I can't believe there's only one more to go after this one ;-; I've been having so much fun writing this fic, even though it's also spooked me a great deal.
> 
> Again, I know it's in the warnings, but just a reminder that this fic includes graphic violence and character death <3

_Knock, knock, knock._

“Well _I’m_ not getting it,” Fee mutters.

Victor’s eyes are just adjusting to the darkness, enough now that he can see a single window up toward the ceiling of the basement. It’s caked over with dirt and grime, but a few stray bolts of moonlight pierce through. Something about the crumbs of light is even more disorienting than pure darkness; Victor can make out vague shapes over Benji’s shoulder, the moving forms of his remaining friends.

Up at the top of the stairs, the feet of the killer are visible in the crack under the door, two blotches of shadow in the navy light.

 _Knock, knock, knock_.

Mia gasps and Lake whispers, “Fucking _fuck_.”

“Why are they doing that?” Benji asks nobody in particular, voice tense, terrified. He pulls away from Victor and helps him to his feet, then places himself between Victor and the stairs.

“Benji,” Victor whispers, suddenly worried about his boyfriend above all else, even despite what he’s just seen. “You’re hurt.”

Benji shakes his head and presses backward against Victor as another trio of _knocks_ pounds through the silence in the basement. “I’m fine. My foot’s just bruised.”

“No offense Benji,” Lake says, her voice only just above silent, “but I don’t think you could take a bloodthirsty psychopath in a pig mask even if you weren’t covered in fucking glass wounds.”

Benji sighs and his arms fall to his sides. He turns and ushers Victor away from the stairs.

“Why haven’t they broken down the door?” Fee asks.

Everybody looks to Victor.

“What? Why would I know?” he asks, hoping he doesn’t look as bewildered as he feels.

Lake steps toward him. “Well. You’re the person who saw them first, right? And you’re the only person who’s…seen all of it happen.”

“Are you saying you think I’m _in_ on it?”

Lake scoffs unconvincingly. “Pssh. No. Of course not.”

“Lake, I already told you he _wouldn’t_ ,” Benji says.

“Oh, great, so while I was upstairs watching Courtney’s head get chopped off, you were all down here talking about me?”

Benji grabs his hand and Victor pulls away. “I tried to tell them you have nothing to do with this, babe.”

“Are you all too stupid to realize what’s going on?” Victor asks, not bothering to whisper anymore. Lake and Fee both shush him. “Oh, shut up! They already fucking know we’re down here. So what? You think I’m lying about witnessing a _decapitation_?”

Lake shrugs. Victor wishes his eyes hadn’t adjusted, because he can’t even stand to look at his friends right now. “All I’m saying is I would like to see it.”

“ _HEY_ ,” Mia says in a muted yell. “I can think of, like, three dozen bigger problems we have right now. For instance, is there another way out of this fucking basement?” Her voice rises in pitch, dripping with panic.

Lake steps up to her and takes Mia’s hands in her own. “That window is the only way out. There’s a cellar door, but it’s blocked off.”

“By what?” Fee asks.

Lake sighs. “Furniture, mostly. The place was full of shitty old stuff that was leftover from the previous owners, and Renee’s family is so rich that they didn’t even think about selling it. They just threw it all down here and made it impossible to get in and out of the basement except through the kitchen.”

“I can probably fit through the window,” Fee says quietly, as if they’re hoping nobody will actually hear them.

Lake turns to them, her eyebrows raised. “I mean, we can try to get you up and out. But then what?”

“I don’t know. I can go for help.”

“While the four of us get slaughtered in this basement? I don’t think so,” Lake says.

Victor shakes his head and huffs in frustration. “In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re still alive.”

“Point?”

Benji gasps. “They’re… _hunting_ us.”

“Right,” Victor says with a resigned nod. “It’s no fun for this psychopath if they just break down the door and kill us like fish in a barrel.”

“God, that’s so fucked up,” Mia mutters and wraps her arms around herself.

Victor shivers; the basement is void of warmth, all frigid stone and hard edges. He looks to the top of the stairs and sucks in a breath when the shadows of Pig-head’s feet move away from the door. “See?” he says and points up the stairs. “They’re gone.”

“Or that’s what they want us to think, at least,” Benji says. “Are we sure we can’t all fit through the window?”

Lake crosses her arms and sits into her hip. “Victor and Fee, maybe. But I think you’re forgetting: boobs.”

“And what about me?” Benji says, one eyebrow cocked.

“Ass,” Lake says simply, then rolls her eyes and walks in a circle.

Benji clears his throat—when Victor looks to him, he sees that his boyfriend almost looks _proud_. Victor gives him a disgusted look and Benji’s smile flees with haste. “Okay, but we’ve bought ourselves some time, yeah?”

“I guess so,” Fee says, knocking their “hooves” together, one shoe in each hand.

Victor looks to the door again, then back to his friends. “We’re getting out of here,” he says. “This is not how things end. I refuse to let that happen. So we have to make a plan.”

“Victor,” Benji starts, but Victor cuts him off.

“There’s gotta be _something_ we can use as a weapon down here.”

Lake looks around. “I mean, there’s rusty pipes and shit. We could probably pulls them off the walls.”

“I call dibs on this pointy chair leg!” Fee calls and holds up a long piece of wood which, yes, looks like it used to be part of a chair. Now it’s broken and splintered at one end, with one chunk of wood that protrudes in particularly menacing way.

Benji chuckles and Victor can’t help but join him.

Mia nods and blows a breath through her nose as if to psych herself up, then walks up to one of the pipes on the wall and starts to yank.

“Uh, Mia, my love,” Lake says and comes up behind her. “I think that one might be sewage. Still active, not old.”

Mia releases her grip and throws her hands up, then walks away. “Fuck this fucking night.”

“What do we think is even gonna happen when we go back upstairs?” Benji asks and crosses the room to the pile of furniture where Fee found their chair leg.

Lake joins him and starts to rummage through some of the wreckage at the foot of the mound. “Well, there’s five of us and one of them, right?” She looks over her shoulder at Victor.

“Oh. Uh. I mean, I haven’t seen anybody else, so…”

She nods, satisfied, then goes back to digging. “Exactly. Even if this psychopath is big and scary, there’s no way they’ll be able to fight off _five_ of us.”

“But…someone could easily die if they get focused first,” Fee points out.

Lake shrugs. “A sacrifice I’m willing to make.”

The room goes silent.

“Guys, I’m _kidding_ ,” she says, then rises and turn from the furniture pile, a dented curtain rod in her manicured hands. “Look, there’s another way out I hadn’t considered yet. Renee’s room has a balcony with a trellis.”

“Lake, that trellis is _ancient_ ,” Mia says. “No way it’ll hold even one of us. Plus, how do we know they aren’t waiting for us there?”

Victor hums. “They do seem to know the house well. They’ve been one step ahead of us on everything. The chandelier, remember?”

“Okay, so we break a window,” Benji says, exasperated.

Lake shakes her head and absently smacks the rod against her open palm. “No, the windows are shatterproof. Renee’s dad was worried that drunk frat guys would break in while we were sleeping and—”

“ _Right_ , okay, I get it,” Benji says. “Hey, how did this creep even get in to begin with?”

“I don’t know,” Lake says, looking upward in thought. “Renee sometimes leaves the front door unlocked.”

Victor rubs a temple, his head buzzing, alcohol still moving through his system. All of the adrenaline has kept him pretty sharp, but now that things have slowed down he can feel the boozy lethargy pumping through his veins. “So her dad insisted on shatterproof glass but she leaves the front door unlocked?”

“I never said the bitch had common sense,” Lake said. “Look, are we team balcony or team run around and get our heads chopped off?”

“Fucking—can you _please_ stop saying that so casually?” Victor asks, stomach gurgling, the image of the meat cleaver slicing through the air, through skin, still flashing in front of his eyes whenever they close.

“She probably deserved it,” Lake says and takes a few practice swings with the curtain rod.

“ _Lake_ ,” Mia and Benji both say, appalled.

“Oh, save it. She was a Republican just because her dad is, even though her mom’s a goddamn immigrant. Anyway, she was sleeping with Holton, which is crazy grimy and hypocritical because her dad has totally been cheating on her mom and it’s, like, tearing their family apart and stuff—”

“I—what?” Fee says. “How do you know all of that?”

Lake grins. “Okay, so the tea is—”

Mia releases a frustrated sort of gasp. “What the fuck does this have to do with anything?”

Lake shrugs and lowers her weapon, seemingly satisfied with its potential lethality. “I’m just saying. I’m not _that_ upset that she’s gone.”

“Okay, well you didn’t have to fucking watch it happen,” Victor spits and takes a step toward her.

Benji grabs Victor’s shoulder. “Don’t, Vic,” he mutters. “She’s just babbling because she’s scared.”

“I am _not._ ”

“If you’re not scared, then you’re a fucking idiot,” Benji says with a little shake of his head. “Or…you’re not telling us something.”

Lake frowns and looks to each of their faces, backing up slightly. “What, you think this is part of the prank or something?”

“I wouldn’t put it past you,” Benji says.

“You—I—are you forgetting the part where we just watched multiple people _die_? Holton literally got crushed by a chandelier. There’s no way to _fake that_! I can _not_ believe that you’re suspicious of me now.”

“It just seems suspicious how calm you are about all of this,” Benji says and takes a step toward her.

Fee nods. “And it seems a bit convenient that all of these people who you despised are dead, but we’re still just fine.”

“ _Hey_!” Victor shouts. The room goes quiet; all eyes are on him, shocked. He sighs. “Look, the last thing we need right now is to turn on each other. Mia, you know Lake best. Would she orchestrate an elaborate series of murders but make herself a potential victim to alleviate suspicion? No, right? Because that’s the behavior of a sociopath?”

They all turn to Mia. She presses her lips together and glances downward, her eyes darting back and forth.

“ _Mia_?” Lake says, betrayed.

“No! God, no, of course not,” Mia says. Victor tilts his head and narrows his eyes, unconvinced. “ _No_ ,” Mia says firmly, then slips her arm through Lake’s. “Look, Lake has been pretty forward about how much she disliked those girls, but she would never arrange to have them _killed_. She’s crafty, but not _that_ crafty.”

“Aw, thanks babe,” Lake says and kisses Mia on the cheek. “I’m gonna take that as a compliment.”

Mia rolls her eyes and pats Lake’s arm. “It’s like you said, Vic. We can’t be turning against each other right now.”

Victor nods. “Exactly.”

“Fine. I—sorry, Lake. It’s hard to think straight when there are still bits of glass in my lower back,” Benji grumbles.

Lake quirks her mouth to the side. “It’s all good. I’m sort of flattered that you thought I could pull off something of this magnitude.”

Mia hangs her head with a sigh.

“So. Balcony?” Victor says, anxious to move things along.

Lake nods. “Right. Her bedroom is upstairs and the balcony faces the front of the house. We just sprint up there, hopefully avoid Wilbur’s deranged cousin, and shimmy down the trellis High School Musical Three style.”

“And if we _do_ run into them?” Fee asks.

Lake just lifts the hand holding the curtain rod. “Curtain rod.”

“Fair enough,” they respond. “And I’ve got my trusty chair leg.”

“Is there storage down here?” Benji asks.

Lake blows a strand of hair out of her face. “There’s a terrifying closet that nobody goes near. Down at the other end of the room. Why?”

Benji doesn’t bother responding; he’s already halfway across the basement, limping toward the wall with the dirty window. Victor follows closely after him. Benji lays a hesitant hand on the doorknob, his skin tie-dyed with his own blood, the brown drying liquid suddenly so apparent in the moonlight trickling in from beside them.

When Benji wrenches the closet door open, Victor half expects Pig-head to be inside. When there’s no movement, he exhales and looks on as Benji rifles through the closet’s contents. A lightbulb dangles overhead; Victor reaches over his boyfriend and gives the string a tug with no results.

“Hey, wait,” he says. “Can’t we turn the power back on?”

Benji grunts from inside the closet. “No. The breaker box is smashed up. Seems like Piggy got to it right after Holton.”

“Perfect,” Victor says.

A second later Benji emerges, holding three metal cylinders. “Are those…?”

“Baseball bats, yeah.”

“How did you know you’d find those?”

“I didn’t. Just got lucky, I guess.”

Victor can’t help but grin as he takes one of the weapons. He turns to rejoin the group, but Benji grabs his wrist.

“Look, Victor,” he says and licks his lips, eyes flitting between the ground and Victor’s eyes. “I just…Before we do this, you have to know how sorry I am. For—for doubting you, and for lying to you, and for letting Lake’s stupid peer pressure influence me—”

“Benji, we don’t have to do this,” Victor says. He tries to wriggle his arm out of Benji’s grip but Benji latches on.

“Yes, Victor, we do.”

Victor shakes his head, fingers curling tight around the rubber grip of the bat. “We’re gonna make it out of this.”

“But…” Benji says, then pauses, considering his next words. “But what if we don’t?” he whispers, voice breaking. “I can’t…Victor I can’t—I can’t _die_ knowing that this is where we left off. I won’t.”

Victor swallows down a lump of horror and nods. “Fine. You’re right.”

“I know you might not be able to forgive me, that you might need time. But I don’t know if we _have_ time, and—”

The bat slips from Victor’s hands and clatters to the ground as he pulls Benji into a hug. Benji doesn’t return the embrace. His arms hang limply at his sides, a metal bat in each hand; he excavates a place in the crook of Victor’s shoulder and sobs, his shoulder’s shaking under the weight of Victor’s arms. Victor wants to cry with him, aches for mutual catharsis and understanding, but all he meets when he turns inward is a numbness, a dull pulse of terror and instinct.

“Benji,” Victor murmurs, only just audible, and then again, “Benji. Hey, look at me.”

Benji sniffles and lifts his head, his face smeared with makeup and paint. A giggle slips through Victor’s lips before he can stop it; Benji frowns and pouts up at him. “What?”

“It’s just—here,” Victor says. He untucks his shirt from his shorts and brings it to Benji’s face, doing his best to wipe away as much of the makeup as he can.

“ _Agh_ , stop,” Benji says. He drops both of his weapons and swats at Victor’s hands. “You’re like my fucking mom.”

“At least I didn’t lick the shirt first,” Victor says, not letting up until Benji’s face is mostly back to normal. “There. Now you look a little less insane.”

“You should’ve left it. Maybe we could’ve used my face to scare them off.”

Victor runs a thumb along Benji’s cheek. “Nah. You’re too pretty. They’d never want to leave.”

Benji rolls his eyes.

“Look…I think I may have overreacted a bit earlier,” Victor says, but Benji shakes his head.

“Don’t, Victor. You always do this. I’m the one to blame here, _not_ you.”

He sighs. “Maybe. It doesn’t matter, though. I forgive you. You had no idea how far it would go, let alone that we’d end up fighting for our lives.”

“Yeah,” Benji says with a vacant chuckle. “Not exactly how I pictured our first real Halloween together.”

“Hey,” Victor says, tilting Benji’s chin upward. “I love you. So much. So much it fucking hurts to look at you sometimes. And if— _if_ —something happens to me tonight, I don’t think I’d be able to move on if I was left wondering whether or not you knew just how much I care about you. So just know that. I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you.”

Benji brings his hand to match Victor’s and rubs his thumb back and forth along the back of Victor’s. “I know, Victor. I love you, too. And I wasn’t lying about what I said before. I really will protect you no matter what it takes.”

Tears spill from Victor’s eyes as he closes the space between them and kisses Benji, and oddly tender and uplifting kiss despite the circumstances. But as Benji kisses him back, his lips so soft and pink, Victor can’t fight the feeling that it feels like a kiss goodbye.

He pulls away, still crying, a smile on his lips. “I can’t see how you’re going to protect me from a serial killer, love. It looks like someone gave you a massage with a weedwacker, and you already lost a fight with a door tonight.”

“Shut up,” Benji says and smacks Victor’s chest. “Pick up your bat and let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“Is it crazy that the idea of us dying together isn’t so bad?” he asks as he leans down to retrieve his weapon. Any other night he probably would have kept this thought to himself, but tonight it’s all or nothing, no holds barred.

Benji hums and picks up his own bats. “Definitely crazy, but exactly the level of tragic romance I’ve come to expect from you. We are _not_ dying, though,” Benji says and points one of the bats at Victor. “We’re not.”

“No, we’re not,” Victor says.

When they rejoin their friends Mia and Lake are off in a corner whispering frantically while Fee is perched on the bottom step, their chin in their hands, almost comical with the two horns curling out of their hair. They look up from the ground as Victor and Benji approach. “Oh, good, are we going now? I’m bored.”

“You—you’re _bored_ ,” Victor repeats.

They stand and grab the splintered chair leg from beside them. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you this, but I’ve had four near-death experiences.”

“ _Four_?” Victor and Benji say in tandem.

“Yup. Two of them weren’t that serious, but the other two were really near misses. At this point, I’m honestly pretty confident that I just can’t be killed.”

“I…don’t even know what to say to that,” Victor says.

Fee just grins and shrugs as Lake and Mia materialize beside Victor. Lake’s eyes are red and puffy; Mia looks relatively composed. “So, what’s the plan?” she asks.

“Well, first of all,” Benji says and passes a bat to her.

Mia grins and takes it. “Excellent find. You know, my dad forced me to play tee ball for one season.”

“How old were you?” Victor asks.

“Six.”

“So what you’re saying is you know your way around a bat.”

Mia takes a step away and goes for a mock swing; there’s a split second where Victor thinks the bat might fly out of her hands, but she follows through nicely and a whoosh of air hits him in the face.

“Well shit. Guess that answers that.”

“I’m gonna go listen at the door to see if I can hear anything,” Fee says, then starts climbing before anyone can protest.

Mia frowns. “Why are they so calm?”

“Can’t be killed, apparently,” Victor mutters. Fee creeps up the stairs, old wood creaking as they go. Victor’s body aches in all of the places where he’d been so rudely introduced to each step, bruises already pooling beneath his skin.

Fee sticks their ear to the door and closes one eye, listening intently. The rest of the crew slowly ascends behind them, every sound like a cosmic explosion in the thick tension. Victor lays a hand on Fee’s shoulder as he reaches the second step from the top.

“Hear anything?”

“I hear you talking.”

“Sorry,” Victor whispers and removes his hand from Fee’s shoulder.

After another few seconds, Fee takes a deep breath. “I think the coast is clear. Everybody have their weapons ready?”

Victor turns and looks down the line; Mia is directly behind him, then Benji, then Lake, suddenly so quiet and hesitant.

“I’m…I’m gonna unlock the door,” Fee says. They fumble with the lock and mutter something unintelligible, which is followed by the click of the lock which echoes in the stairway. They press their ear to the door once more, their horns tilting awkwardly. “All right, here goes—” Fee starts to say, but they’re interrupted by the sound of wood splintering, by a blood-caked blade that crashes through the door and into Fee’s head.

Victor almost topples backward but Mia screams and holds him up. Lake cries out from the bottom of the steps and Benji screams “ _FEE_!”

The blade suddenly retracts and Fee turns to Victor, their eyes wild and frenzied, and their head…completely intact. “They hit the horn,” Fee says, an odd sort of glee in their voice. “I _told_ you, I can’t be killed—”

Before they can finish their celebration, the door wrenches open. Fee, whose hand had still been holding tight to the knob, is yanked forward. They collapse to the floor and skitter across the tile with the force of it.

Victor screams and trips as he jolts forward, his foot catching on the top step and sending him toppling. He lands on his elbows, bat bouncing out of his hands and across the kitchen with a series of metallic clangs. By the time he looks up, Benji has jumped over him and is halfway across the room, standing only feet from where Pig-head holds Fee by the neck.

Fee dangles, their legs kicking wildly, and Benji limps foreward. “ _LET THEM GO_ ,” Benji shouts. Pig-head turns to him and seems to consider it.

“Fee,” Victor chokes out, pushing up onto his hands and knees and scrambling for his bat, which lies several yards away. His best friend’s life is literally hanging in the balance and Victor can’t even seem to get to his feet, a strange gravity of pain pulling his muscles down into the cold tile.

“ _PLEASE_ ,“ Benji shouts again.

Victor lurches forward on his knees and grabs the bat, then manages to use to to push himself up.

Just in time to watch Pig-head lifts the meat cleaver and drive it into the center of Fee’s forehead.

A deafening ring erupts in Victor’s ears, pierced by a wail from Lake and the sound of Benji screaming. Fee seems to almost float, the knife jutting from their skull like a third horn, straight and deadly, all awash in beautiful moonlight. Blood trickles in a perfect line down the center of their face, their eyes wide and frozen in panic.

Pig-head cocks their head to the side and looks at Benji, then makes an animal sort of grunt and tosses Fee’s body to the side. From inside their cloak they withdraw another blade, this one long and slightly curved, one edge serrated: a machete. They take a lumbering step toward Benji; Victor’s ears are still ringing wildly, but he’s vaguely aware that Benji is still screaming, a guttural extended cry.

Benji is also frozen in place, his body turned toward Fee as Pig-head takes another step.

“Benji,” Victor slurs, everything fuzzy. He tries to step toward the love of his life but the bat in his hands is millions of pounds and his feet are glued to the floor. The whole world creeps through tar; Pig-head raises the machete, clean and deadly in the sapphire light; Benji has collapsed to his knees, bat on the floor in front of him, arms around himself; Mia is suddenly rushing forward; she takes a strong step, swings the bat up and up, a gorgeous arc that slices through the air and catches Pig-head in the back of their neck with an orgasmic _clunk_ ; Pig-head staggers, the machete clanging to the ground.

Lake’s arms are around Victor, dragging him toward the hallway as Mia forces Benji to his feet. She screams something, tears streaming down her face and catching the moonlight.

“F-Fee,” Victor croaks while Lake tries to pull him. He shakes his head, the ringing louder and louder and the world coming in and out of focus.

“Victor, they’re gone,” Lake says, her voice garbled, like they’re underwater, and she’s practically tearing Victor’s arm out of its socket.

Mia and Benji rush toward them, Benji still howling and Mia trying to breathe through her sobs. “Go, let’s go!” she screams as they meet Lake and Victor, who’s still making an attempt to reach for his best friend.

“ _FEE_ ,” he screeches.

“ _IT’S TOO LATE_ ,” Mia fires back. “Victor, we have to go, _right now_.”

The next thirty seconds are chaos, Victor’s brain turning on and off so as not to bear the full brunt of the moment. He’s only marginally in control of his feet as Lake guides him through the foyer, up the stairs, back toward the hallway where he’d first seen Pig-head, into the first room on the right which is through an intricate set of double doors. Mia and Benji are close behind; Benji collapses to the ground, crying so hard he’s dry heaving.

Victor’s ears stop ringing, gradually coming down from their fever pitch and throwing him back into reality. Lake and Mia both cry as they drag a an ornate armoire in front of the door, their muscles visibly straining due to its weight, adrenaline granting them the strength to barricade them in.

He joins Benji on the ground and pulls his boyfriend in, trying to contain the seismic shock Benji has become in the aftermath of Fee’s death. Though he’s still trembling violently himself, Victor wraps his arms around Benji, rubs his back, shushes him.

Mia turns from the armoire and crouches down. “Vic, Benji, I know…I know, but we have to go.”

Victor understands now how Courtney felt, the strange compulsion that rooted her in place and ultimately took her life. They just…left Fee behind.

“The balcony is _right there_ ,” Mia whispers through her tears. She’s covered in grime, sweat, flecks of blood. “We can do this.”

Victor nods and tries to steel himself; the tears have at least reduced down to a steady, silent flow. Benji is still curled up against Victor’s chest.

“Benji,” Victor murmurs. “ _Mi amor_. We can…we can deal with it later, yeah? For now, let’s just make sure we get out safe.”

Lake paces the room, gnawing one of her fingernails and breathing in high, frantic gasps. Mia rises from her crouch and grabs Lake by the shoulders as Victor peels Benji away from him. Benji’s chin is tucked tight to his sternum, features scrunched up in anguish.

“Hey, can you be strong for me?” Victor says and presses his forehead to Benji’s. “Five minutes. We just need to be strong for five more minutes.”

“Five minutes,” Benji repeats, his words distorted. “Five minutes.”

Victor pulls him to his feet; Benji wraps his arms around Victor again. “I love you. I can’t—if that happens to you, I don’t know what I’ll do, I’ll just die, Victor, I can’t survive—”

“ _Shh_ ,” Victor insists. “We’re so close, B. Please, let’s just go.”

Benji finally pulls away and nods, his whole face blotchy. “Okay. Okay, let’s go.”

Victor nods at Lake, who pulls open the door and darts out onto the balcony. She leans over the railing to look at the trellis, her feet kicking wildly behind her. “Yeah, this will work,” she says, her voice laden with relief. Lake straightens and turns back toward them, standing under the doorway to the balcony with a smile on her face. “Mia, do you hear anything from out in the hallway? I think you really gave them the business.”

Mia rushes over to the armoire and presses her ear against the wall that faces the hallway. “No, nothing. Maybe I knocked them out?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Victor says and grabs Benji’s hand. “Let’s not stick around to find out, though.”

“Definitely not,” Mia agrees. She brushes her hands together and turns back toward the balcony. Victor’s heart stops dead when Mia’s eyes widen and her hand flies to her mouth. “ _Oh my god, Lake!_ ” she screams.

Victor follows her gaze and sees Lake whip around, only to find Pig-head climbing up over the railing.

“ _GET THE DRESSER_ ,” Victor screams, something animal and deep-rooted kicking in. He and Benji both rush to the door and start to drag the armoire aside, but one of the carved designs is caught on a doorknob, refuses to move. From behind him, Victor hears terrified shrieks, Lake shredding her vocal chords and Mia wailing undistinguishable words. He wagers a glance over his shoulder; Lake is trying to hold the door between the room and the balcony closed and Mia is trying to pull her away, looking hysterically back and forth between Lake and the door back into the house. Every one of Lake’s high-pitched screams sends a cold shock through him along with a pang of nausea, his nerves jolting, electric, desperate.

The armoire tips with a thunderous crash; Victor had been trying to slide it to allow room for the door to open. He screams in frustration, has to let some of his terrified energy loose, and starts to jostle one of the double doors, ramming it against the dresser over and over. Benji frantically pulls the wooden mass and within a couple of seconds they’ve made progress; the door will open just enough for them to slip through one by one.

Victor turns, his arms burning from the effort, and the whole world goes up in flames then freezes solid when he sees that Pig-head has their hands around Mia’s and Lake’s throats, has hoisted them up in the air. Lake is swinging her curtain rod wildly and releasing scream after scream.

“ _VICTOR, HELP,_ ” Mia begs, and there’s no way the whole neighborhood can’t hear the frantic, panicked shrieks, but if anybody believes they’re real, by the time somebody thinks to come check it will be too late.

Victor is empty handed; all of the weapons seem to have been misplaced in their dash from the kitchen to this bedroom. “ _MIA_ ,” he screams and goes to join Pig-head on the balcony, but Benji’s yanks him backward.

“No, Victor!” he shouts, and though Victor struggles, Benji holds tight to his shoulders. “There’s nothing you can do!”

Maybe he’s right; Victor never gets the chance to find out. Pig-head turns on the spot and walks up to the railing. Lake continues to send terrified howls like fireworks up into the night while Mia cries, “ _NO NO NO NO!_ ”

“L _ET THEM GO_ ,” Victor demands, still fighting against Benji.

So the hulking figure lifts Victor’s friends over the balcony’s railing.

And Pig-head lets go.


	5. At Least You Wore Something Nice Today

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOOK AT THAT! WE MADE IT!!!! Y'all, this was simply so much fun. I really lived my best melodramatic life in writing this chapter (but also lowkey I'm super proud of some of the Venji stuff in this one, they're just so sweet and tender with each other ;-;)
> 
> Again, warning for gore and death!

Victor’s eyes snap shut, as if blocking out all visual stimuli could spare him from the sickening _crunch_ of Mia and Lake hitting the concrete.

“Oh my god,” Benji moans from behind Victor, nausea palpable in his voice.

Victor stands frozen, his eyes still closed. From below there’s a shriek of pain—Lake, he thinks, but it’s so raw and void of humanity that it’s impossible to tell.

He forces his eyes open.

On the balcony, Pig-head seems to be weighing his options, looking back and forth between Victor and Benji and the two girls a floor down.

“Victor—go,” Benji gurgles; he’s trying not to vomit, Victor thinks, but the whole world has come to a crashing halt in this moment and he can’t process, can’t internalize any of it. “Let’s go,” Benji begs. “Please, we can’t, Victor, we can’t stay here.”

“And just _leave them_?” Victor fires back. His legs tremble, threatening to collapse beneath him as Pig-head looks on, then turns and seems to make their decision as they swing their legs over the railing.

Benji gasps like he’s been stabbed. “Now, Victor. We can go, we can find another way out, we have to—”

Victor blocks out Benji’s voice and steps forward. Even when Benji lurches toward him and grabs Victor’s wrist, he continues, hellbent on reaching the balcony, on unleashing as much chaos as he can, on dying to avenge his friends if that’s what the fuck it takes.

If that’s what it takes to ensure Benji doesn’t meet the same fate.

“Victor, what the _fuck_ do you think you’re doing?” Benji hisses.

He wrenches free of Benji’s grip and rushes out onto the terrace, where Pig-head is about a foot down, struggling to gain their footing in the delicate trellis. They don’t even notice as Victor stomps up the the railing, tears carving twin canyons down his cheeks. To his right he sees the curtain rod that Lake had claimed as her defense, lying unused on the cold stone.

Victor snatches the curtain rod and returns to the railing.

“ _HEY, MOTHERFUCKER,_ ” he shouts, his voice booming solid from his chest.

Pig-head looks up, the gruesome hues of their mask and the texture of the pig’s skin ghastly in the full moonlight. They make a low grunting noise and start to climb back back upward.

With a carnal roar, Victor grips the curtain rod with both hands and jams it down into the face of the pig mask, directly through the left eye. Pig-head releases a horrifying howl and reaches up at Victor, but he jumps to the side, away from the heavy hand swinging toward him, then pulls the rod slightly outward so he can jam it back in. This time it sinks deeper with a _squish_ and a _crunch._

Pig-head releases an odd, choked sort of moan. Their grip on the trellis weakens, and with another strong shove from Victor, they topple backward and crash to the stone below, right between Mia and Lake. Blood oozes from the place where the curtain rod just from the mask, maroon and thick.

Mia is conscious, Victor realizes. One of her legs is completely shattered, her splintered tibia poking through the skin, bloody and raw. She’s whimpering and her eyes are wide, trained on the enormous body that’s landed directly beside her. Her phone is in her hand; even from this height, Victor can tell that her phone app is open. _Has she called 9-1-1_? On the other side of the villain lies Lake, blood pooling around her head like a sanguine halo. Her face looks strangely peaceful.

“Mia!” Victor calls through his tears, his chest tight and buzzing.

She looks up and her panic seems to get a jumpstart when she sees Victor string down from the terrace. Her whimpers turn into closed-mouth screams and tears flood downward and into the ground. She’s in so much pain she can’t even speak.

“It’s okay,” Victor says, though Mia shakes her head. “Just—just hold on, all right? I’m gonna come get you.”

Mia nods and squeezes her eyes shut; her hands flutter near the grisly wound, like she needs to touch it and see if it’s really happening but can’t bring herself to do so.

Victor returns his gaze to Pig-head feeling frenzied, his shoulders heaving, a strange sort of furious victory having come over him. It’s in his name, after all. The victor, the winner, the final boy.

No, not the final boy. Behind him, back inside, Benji is vomiting. Victor turns and sprints inside; luckily, Benji has located a tiny metal trashcan under Renee’s desk that’s filled with used makeup wipes. He cries as he expels all of his innards, bodily fluids sluicing into the receptacle as Victor crouches beside him and rubs his back.

“Shh, it’s okay now, it’s okay,” Victor murmurs.

Benji’s fingers are pure white on the edges of the trashcan, vibrating wildly as he coughs up the last of his stomach’s contents. He spits once, pulls his head away, then sits backward and leans against Renee’s bed. “What…did you do?” he says between breaths.

“Curtain rod,” Victor says, and this is all the explanation Benji needs.

“Are you sure they’re…?”

Victor shrugs and moves a stray piece of hair away from Benji’s forehead. His skin is pale and moist to the touch; Victor presses the back of his hand to Benji’s head.

“Shit. You’re burning up, babe.”

Benji reaches up and pulls Victor’s hand away from his forehead. “That is literally the least of our problems right now. Mia and Lake?”

“Right,” Victor says and rises. He offers Benji a hand and helps him up.

Benji groans as he rises, his face flashing green for a moment. He holds up a fingers and angles his face away, but it passes and he exhales. “I fucking _hate_ —”

“You hate throwing up, I know,” Victor says.

Benji nods and smacks his tongue, features scrunched in disgust. “Do you think—?”

But Victor is already going through Renee’s desk drawers, throwing aside pastel sticky notes and pens with pink fur on them until he finds a back of gum. He pops two rectangles through the foil and drops them into Benji’s hands, then tosses one into his mouth for good measure.

“We’re never going to hear the end of this, are we?” Benji asks, voice small. “The, uh…the survivors never do,” he says, grimacing around the word ‘survivors.’

Victor reaches out and hastily brushes a stray tear from Benji’s cheekbone. “It’s better than the alternative, isn’t it?” and looks over his shoulder, listening for Mia.

“Of course, yeah. But just…all of the publicity. We probably won’t even get to go home until tomorrow. The media will be all over this.”

“Maybe. Hey, at least you look cute for your television debut.”

Benji smiles—despite himself, it seems, because he ducks his head and brings one hand up to cover his face.

“ _VICTOR_!” A strangled scream from outside.

Victor startles and clutches a hand to his chest. “Fucking hell,” he mutters, then kisses Benji’s forehead. “You distract me, _mi amor_.”

Benji pushes Victor toward the balcony. “Let’s go, I need to see if they’re okay.”

Victor grabs Benji’s hand as they cross the room. “Are you sure you’ll be able to climb down?”

“Now that we’re no longer in mortal peril, I think I can handle—”

Benji stops cold, his fingers falling from Victor’s.

Pig-head is crawling back over the balcony railing, machete in one hand, the curtain rod bloody and erect in their left eye.

Victor screams, a short bark of terror, and then pulls Benji backward, back inside, slamming the door, locking it, trying to find something to block it.

“ _LET’S GO, LET’S JUST GO_ ,” Benji wails, trying to drag Victor away from the door as Pig-head swings their legs over the railing and lands on the terrace with a menacing _thump_. As they approach the door, machete raised, Victor surrenders to Benji’s arms and dashes to the other side of the room where the door sits just barely open.

Benji pushes him through first, his head turned toward the balcony and his eyes wide, literally shaking in fright. Victor stands in the hallway feeling completely helpless, no longer able to see what’s happening on the other side. Benji gets his top half through the opening just fine, and then—

“Oh my fucking god,” he moans. “Victor, I—”

Victor covers his mouth with one hand and almost chokes on his piece of gum, which he hastily swallows. “You’re fucking _kidding me_.”

“WHY WOULD I BE KIDDING YOU IN THIS MOMENT,” Benji shrieks, trying again to pull his hips through the opening and meeting too much resistance. “If my foot weren’t so fucked up I could probably just push through and deal with the bruising tomorrow, but—”

From inside, the sound of glass shattering sends icy jolts of panic between Victor’s ribs.

“Back up for a second,” he insists.

Benji looks over his shoulder then returns his gaze to Victor. He shakes his head. “Victor, I can’t—”

“ _TRUST ME_ ,” Victor shouts.

Benji licks his lips and pulls his torso out of the door.

Before he can overthink, Victor slams the door shut.

“ _VICTOR_?” Benji yelps, betrayed.

And then Victor takes a deep breath, grits his teeth, and throws all of his weight into the door. The force of it shifts the armoire another inch.

“Try now!” Victor says, his panic so intense it’s molded to the shape of his heart. Another shatter of glass. “ _BENJI, NOW_!”

Benji nods and takes one last glance backward before shoving his body into the opening. This time, he still struggles but manages to wiggle through the tight gap; he stumbles out the other side and into Victor’s arms.

“What was that?” Victor asks, out of breath, the shock of hitting the door still vibrating through his bones.

Benji shakes his head and takes a gasping breath. “I’m sorry, there was a split second where I thought you—”

“That I was leaving you behind?”

Another glass shatter and a chorus of small crunches; Pig-head has broken through the door.

Victor shakes his head and grabs Benji’s hand. “I would never leave you behind Benji. Never.”

Benji nods and hangs his head; Victor wants to tilt his chin upward, to pepper his face with kisses and tell Benji that he would throw himself between him and a train, a meteor, between Benji and the end of the world, but instead he kisses him once on the forehead and pulls him down the hallway.

“That fucker is enormous, they won’t be able to get through the door as easily as us,” Victor pants as they jog down the hall and to the staircase. “It should buy us some—”

He’s cut off by a thunderous boom. When Victor turns, the door is off its hinges and in several pieces. Pig-head hasn’t gone unscathed in the destruction; they’re on the ground, the momentum of their blow knocking them into a daze.

“Go, go, go,” Victor says under his breathe as they rush down the stairs. He attacks the front door when he gets to the bottom, ignoring Millie’s body lying off to the side near the coat closet, but whatever object is blocking their passage holds fast and tight. “ _FUCKING FUCK,_ ” he roars and grabs Benji’s hand again, pulling him into the sitting room, where the remains of a chandelier and a frat boy lie scattered everywhere.

“Wait, Victor,” Benji says. He casts a glance over his shoulder before approaching one of the only recognizable portions of Holton: an arm, still clutching fast to a hatchet. Benji scrunches up his features in disgust as he pries the fingers away from the handle and takes the weapon for himself. “Kitchen,” he says.

“Benji—”

“ _Kitchen, Vic_!” Benji awkwardly limps into the next room, hatchet dangling from his grip, and Victor is right beside him, his eyes behind them and checking to see if Pig-head is in pursuit.

“Benji, what are we doing? You’re just backing us into a corner.”

“No, I’m not,” Benji insists and marches right up to the kitchen door.

Victor sighs and looks over his shoulder again. Nothing. Yet. “We already tried this and you fucked up your foot—”

“ _FUCK THIS DOOR_!” Benji hollers; he raises the hatchet and brings it down in the spot where the doorknob used to be.

Victor jumps backward with a little yelp. “ _Fucking_ —okay, yes, keep doing that!”

With a breath in through clenched teeth, Benji raises the hatchet again and swings it into the door with a satisfying _crunch._

There’s a creak and a thud from upstairs; it sounds suspiciously close to their own location, just one floor up, but Victor doesn’t have time to worry about it. Plus, there’s no chandelier in the kitchen, so they at least don’t have to worry about a repeat of the Holton situation.

Benji takes his final swing; Victor knows it’s his final swing because Benji screeches, “ _IF THIS DOESN’T DO IT THAT BASTARD CAN JUST KILL ME_!” He wants to roll his eyes at this wanton display of testosterone and machismo, but Benji’s insistence works. The door bursts apart, splinters of wood flying every which way as it swings open.

“You did it! Holy fuck, you actually did it!”

Benji turns back to Victor and swings the hatchet up onto his shoulder. “I used to cut wood with my dad,” he says with a little smirk.

“Backstory can wait, we need to go,” Victor reminds him. “Around front, get Mia and Lake, and then…”

“We can figure out the rest later,” Benji says, already halfway out the door. Victor follows closely, out into the cool autumn night and to the right, cutting along the side of the house. Victor can’t help but allow a bubble of laughter to burst in his throat, filtering through his lips and into the night. They’ve made it, everything is going to be okay, they just need to get to Mia and Lake and go for help, and then—

Victor is thrown to the ground when an enormous figure falls from the sky like a psychopathic comet; Pig-head launches themself from the terrace on the second floor.

Benji dives from the stone of the back patio and into the grass, rolling away, away from Victor, into the night, weapon still in hand.

Pig-head hits the ground and sways in place for a moment, the curtain rod somehow buried even deeper in their face. Victor scrambles backward, tearing open the heels of his hands as he goes. He thinks he might be screaming; he can feel his throat undulating, something is punching his ears.

Everything comes to a stop when Victor realizes: Pig-head isn’t coming for him.

Benji gets to his feet off in the grass, the hatchet precarious in his right hand and a permanent wince locked into his features. “Victor, my foot,” he sobs, even as Pig-head is taking a disoriented step forward, machete brandished. Benji grunts and matches the movement.

“ _BENJI, NO!_ ” Victor tries to push back to his feet but his body won’t obey, keeps telling him to turn and run, synapses firing on all cylinders and unravelling in his head as Benji approaches the lumbering psychotic mass and raises the hatchet. Victor can only watch from fifty feet away as Benji sends the hatchet careening toward the maniac.

But Pig-head’s wits are still about them. They raise their arm to block the blow; the hatchet flies forward with the momentum of Benji’s swing, out of his hands and off into the lawn somewhere.

Benji frowns, for a moment genuinely confused that he’s been disarmed.

The frown shifts into bestial dismay as Pig-head grabs Benji by the throat. Victor wails Benji’s name, over and over, crawling toward them. Pig-head must be waning in their stamina; unable to lift Benji into the air, they drag him across the grass by his neck. Benji’s hands pull at the enormous one around his throat, legs kicking hysterically.

Victor crawls after, all the strength gone from his body, watching with resigned horror as Pig-head leans Benji up against the iron fence that perimeters the lawn. The fence is old-fashioned, each bar tipped with a rusty metal point, half of them bent or cracked.

Pig-head lifts Benji, who manages to meet Victor’s eye from across the grass—Victor continues to crawl, covered in dew and blood, only some of it his own.

“ _BENJI_ ,” he wails one final time.

With a _squish_ and a strangled moan, Benji’s body is forced down onto one of the fence-spikes. Victor ejects a guttural wail; even from this distance he can see the tip of the spike protruding from Benji’s abdomen, dripping in his blood. Benji coughs once, a spray of red erupting from his mouth. Pig-head lifts him from the fence and tosses his body to the ground.

“No, no, no,” Victor sobs and stops crawling, shoves his face down into the grass. He can’t move. He hears Pig-head approaching, the grass rustling with each hulking step, but he can’t muster the strength to flee. His world has ended. Survival doesn’t matter anymore. Death would be better than this.

And yet, as he lifts his head and sees the killer looming above, some natural instinct kicks in and he manages to push up on one knee, get to his feet, run three steps, four, between a dark sorrowful resignation usurps all muscle function and he topples to the grass again.

Victor manages to flip onto his back as Pig-head approaches. He shakes his head wildly and tries to pull himself backward, his hands singing in pain from the exposed nerves in the heels of his hands. “Please,” he begs, “please, please don’t do this! I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” though what he actually has to apologize for escapes him. “Don’t do this!”

Music from a distant party thumps in Victor’s body; someone laughs in the street, on the other side of the house, the other side of the world. In the still of the night Pig-head’s breaths are audible, each one a fetid wheeze, damp, labored. The machete gleams under the moon and Victor can already feel the blade in his gut, sawing into his ribs, hacking at his limbs, and all he wants is to close his eyes and disappear, allow oblivion to set in and relieve him from this hell.

He closes his eyes. _I love you, I love you, I love you_ , he chants in his head, Benji’s face smiling, shining in his mind. _If we aren’t together on the other side, I will never rest until I find you_.

Victor holds his breath, everything slowing down, all of the wheezing breaths, the lumbering steps. Pig-head’s shadow falls over him, the lumbering figure blocking out the moon. Eyes still crammed closed, Victor waits for the end, waits to experience the unknowable pain of being excavated, dissected alive. He waits, he waits, and—

 _Thwack_.

The sound of a blade lodging itself into thick flesh. Victor sobs; he can’t even feel it, the weapon in his body, and maybe this is the ultimate mercy, maybe he’ll slip away and not have to bear the agony.

Pig-head grunts, a surprised sound.

Victor opens his eyes. His own body is shockingly machete-less.

Above him, the handle of a hatchet juts wildly into the night, its blade buried deep in Pig-head’s neck. Victor blinks once, twice, sure his eyes are deceiving him.

Pig-head collapses.

And standing in their place is Benji.

“Oh my god,” Victor mutters. Benji’s jaw and throat are covered in blood, which still dribbles from the corners of his mouth. His eyes are vacant, daze, and one hand is pressed over the gaping hole in his abdomen, all too apparent because of his cropped shirt. His legs give; Benji’s knees hit the grass, but Victor catches him before he can fall on his face.

“Hey, hey,” Victor murmurs, forcing a smile. Tears drip onto Benji’s face as Victor lays him in his lap. “Hey, look at me, just look at me, okay?”

Benji grins up at him, a blank sort of tenderness in his eyes. He reaches up and cups Victor’s jaw, smearing Victor’s skin with warm blood. “I told you, didn’t I?”

“You told me what, love?” Victor whispers, trying to be strong.

“That I would always protect you. No matter…what it takes,” he says, eyelids fluttering, flecks of blood caught in his curved lashes.

Victor smooths Benji’s hair back and lets out a sound between a sob and a laugh. He nods, then closes his eyes, tears streaming from their corners as he leans down to rest his forehead against Benji’s. Victor’s shoulders bob wildly as he cries; Benji’s blood seeps into his lap, the love of Victor’s life literally pouring himself out into Victor’s bare hands.

Somewhere in the distance, the sound of sirens cuts through the night.

“Hey, hey, stay with me,” Victor croaks when Benji’s eyes close. “You’re gonna be okay, yeah? Help is coming. It’s so close Benji, so close.”

Benji makes a little noise in the back of his throat, then coughs, sending blood down Victor’s front. “I love you, Victor Salazar,” Benji says. He sounds elated, transcended, he knows something Victor doesn’t, he’s been somewhere Victor hasn’t and Victor wants to follow him, knows he can’t.

“ _Te amo_ ,” Victor says, voice breaking. “Benji, please, just stay with me.”

Benji shakes his head. The sirens are close, so close, Victor can see the blue and red flashes even from the backyard.

“So…tired,” Benji mutters, his thumb brushing back and forth across Victor’s cheek. “Are you…gonna be…okay?”

Victor tilts his head away for a second, swallows down an inhuman wail. “Yeah, of course,” he lies and turns back to Benji. “All thanks to you, love.”

The sound of car doors opening and closing cuts through the sirens, walkie-talkie chatter and authoritative hollering.

“Good,” Benji says, thumb catching on Victor’s bottom lip as he lowers his hand. “That’s…all I needed…to hear.” Benji sighs and smiles. His eyes slide shut. His body goes limp in Victor’s arms.

“No,” Victor says, gently smacking Benji’s cheek. “Benji? Benji, wake up, wake up,” Victor pleads frantically. “ _Benji, please, you can’t leave me,_ ” he wails and folds in half over Benji’s body. The violent sobs that rip through Victor rock Benji, back and forth, rocking him to sleep, rocking him into whatever lies beyond.

“Anybody back here?” comes a voice from behind Victor. A bright white beam catches Benji’s body.

And Victor wails, wishing he could tear himself down the middle and relieve himself of this venom, this poisonous anguish that’s blighted his blood and fills his lungs, bursting from his eyes in hot acidic tears as Benji goes cold in his embrace.

“Hey! We’ve got another live one in the backyard!”

Victor looks up to the sky, the moon shining down benevolently, lighting the face of his lover for the final time.

And everything fades to black.

* * *

There’s a silence.

The credits roll.

Fee lets out a long whistle. “Fucking hell, you two,” they say.

Victor hastily wipes his eyes, embarrassed to be crying again, still trying to conquer the embarrassment born from how much he’d cried on the night of filming. “ _Whew_ ,” he says. Benji squeezes his hand and smiles.

Lake rises and claps her hands together. “So, what do we think?” she addresses the group, sitting on the very couches where they had in the movie.

“Are you alive or dead?” Fee asks.

Lake sighs and presses the tips of her fingers together. “Did you completely miss the point? The film was not _about_ me. It was about Victor and Benji. Their characters, I mean.”

Mia joins her girlfriend in front of the group; Victor chuckles because she’s also crying. “Speaking of, can we just give a round of applause for Vic and B? We forced them into this project and then they gave us a performance that puts most Oscar winners to shame. I mean, if you weren’t sitting right here Benji, I would think you were…”

“Really dead, I know,” Benji says with a laugh. “Honestly, it was an honor that you two wanted us to play the lead roles.”

“‘Wanted to’ is a strong way of putting it,” Lake says with a saccharine smile. “It’s more about the fact that the rubric literally says we’re not allowed to play the leads. Otherwise you _know_ it would be me losing my mind over Mia’s dead body in that backyard.”

“Well, fine,” Benji says and pats Victor’s leg. “Regardless, it was a blast, and the finished product is _killer_.”

“Babe,” Victor says with a cutting glance.

Benji snorts. “Pun was unintentional. Anyway, if you don’t get a good grade, I’ll go in there and stab myself in front of your professor or something.”

“Um, please don’t,” Victor and Mia say in tandem.

Andrew clears his throat. “So, what, we’re just gonna ignore all of my contributions?”

Lake walks up to where he’s sitting on the couch and grabs his cheeks. “Aw, yes wittle Andwew, you were just the best wittle piggy in the whole worwd!”

Andrew slaps her hands away with a disgusted look. “You know what? Forget I said anything.”

Lake and Andrew break out into a round of loud bickering with occasional input from Fee and Mia, which allows Benji to turn away from their friends and face Victor.

“Hey, you okay?” he asks, voice hushed.

Victor nods and sniffles, his eyes still a bit wet. “I hate that last part. You were too good at fake dying.”

Benji shrugs with a little smile. “I played a lot of house as a kid. I always wanted to be the sickly younger brother who died.”

“You’re demented.”

“But adorable.”

“Yes, both are definitely true,” Victor says and slips his hand into Benji’s. “I…I know most of it was scripted, but it didn’t feel fake. The words, I mean. And those tears.”

Benji’s smile falters. “I know, Vic. I know how much you love me. You remind me almost every day. And you know I would never really do something like that to you, right?”

“The prank? Yeah, no, of course not,” Victor says, biting his lip, his brows furrowed. “Shooting that last scene, I just went to a really dark place. And it scared me.”

“Dark how?” Benji asks and shifts slightly closer.

Victor clears his throat and brings his free hand up to Benji’s neck, part of him needing to check that there’s a pulse, that Benji really is warm and alive in his arms. “Maybe it’s crazy, but…if you ever died…I don’t think I’d be able to go on.”

“Oh, Victor,” Benji says and tilts his head slightly, his lips turning down into a little pout. “You shouldn’t think things like that.”

“Yeah, I…I know. I told you it was really dark.”

Benji nods and rests his forehead against Victor’s, runs his hand up Victor’s arm. “But I’m here, right? You feel me? You hear me? You—” Benji quickly presses his lips to Victor’s and then pulls away. “You taste me,” he says with a little giggle. “All of that? It was fake, Victor. And this? Us? This is real.”

“I know,” Victor says, staring directly into Benji’s eyes, at a hazel-tinted reality that still feels too good to be true, even after all of these days, these months. “I’m sorry. I just…I love you so fucking much,” he says, his cheeks flushing when his eyes brim with tears again.

“Hey, Vic,” Benji says as he reaches up to brush the tears away. “I love you, too. I’ve had boyfriends before, but this…I don’t even think of you as my boyfriend, I guess? You’re just, like, this piece of my life that I can’t imagine being without. I can’t remember what things were even like before we met. If you’re afraid of losing me, please don’t be. Because as far as I’m concerned, all I want to do is find you, over and over, for the rest of my life.”

Victor lets out a teary exhale, then laughs at his own emotional state. “Benjamin Campbell, you are an absolute rascal with words sometimes.”

“It’s the lyricist in me, I can’t help it,” Benji murmurs. He grabs both sides of Victor’s face, then pulls him in for a kiss, deep and sweet. “And just for the record,” Benji whispers as he pulls away. “You _could_ live without me, because you’re strong and I personally think you’re capable of anything. But if it’s up to me, we won’t have to test that theory. At least, not anytime soon.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Victor says with a watery laugh. “Or maybe you’re like Fee and you can’t be killed.”

Benji flutters his lips, amused. “Right, that worked out so well for them.”

“Hey! Are y’all done having your moment that we’ve all been pretending to not pay attention to?” Lake snaps.

Victor and Benji both laugh but don’t pull away from each other. “Well, seems like we’re finished now,” Victor says.

“Good. Because we’re watching it again.”

Fee groans and leans back, bonking their head on the back of the couch and wincing. “Do we have to?”

“We told you, two viewings minimum to check for inconsistencies and do quality control. That first viewing was mostly for pleasure, now we have to be critical,” Mia says, sounding slightly apologetic.

“Are you gonna be okay?” Benji murmurs to Victor.

He nods. “Hold my hand through the whole thing?”

“Not even a pig-headed serial killer could drag me away.”

Benji kisses him again, lips plush and tender, still curled up into a smile.

“All right, whores, let’s keep our eyes on the screen, please!” Lake says as the lights go off and the movie restarts.

Benji pokes Victor’s ribcage. “Here goes, mister leading man.”

“Here goes,” Victor repeats.

* * *

Victor’s eyes snap open and he sucks in a panicked breath, the image of Benji drenched in blood flashing like a shadow in his vision. He shakes his head as he sits up in bed. Benji is still fast asleep beside him, the familiar rhythm of his breath soothing Victor’s jolty nerves.

He leans over and looks at his phone. It’s four in the morning, October thirty-first. They’ll be hitting two or three different parties tonight for Halloween; one Victor got invited to, and a small curated list of the _many_ gatherings Benji was begged to attend.

Victor sigh and sets his phone down, resettling under the covers and pulling Benji closer to him, the expanse of his back warm and wonted.

As his eyes flutter closed, there’s a flash from the corner of Benji’s bedroom. It could be headlights going by in the street below, a cloud parting to let a beam of moonlight reflect off the lamp on Benji’s desk, the reflection of a shooting star. It could be a man in the corner, rotating his knife, waiting to step out of the shadows and dig the blade into their necks, paint the room red.

With Benji’s body in Victor’s arm—toasty, breathing, even more human, more _alive_ in his sleeping—Victor thinks he’d be fine with any of the above. He closes his eyes and drifts off, the world going dark and warm around him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you have it! Y'all didn't think I was REALLY gonna kill off any of these characters, did you? I wouldn't be able to live with myself holy shit.
> 
> Please leave kudos/a comment if you're up to it!! I love hearing your thoughts and interacting with y'all, and comments are sort of my lifeblood, just like any fic writer <3

**Author's Note:**

> This incredible fanart was done by my incredible friend [temporarylove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/temporarylove/pseuds/temporarylove) and it's everything I have ever wanted in life ;-;


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